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^< WASHINGTON IRVING. 



CHARLES DUDLEY ^WARNER. 







BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 

dL^c Eiijerfitlie Press, Camtritiffe, 

1881. 



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Copyright, 1S81, 
By CHARLES DLDLEY WARNER. 

All ingh^sjrest^rved. 



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The Rivcrsirle Prexx, Camhrici s:f : 
TElectrotyped and printed by II. 0. Ilougliton & Co 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGS 

Prkliminabt 1 



CHAPTER n. 
Boyhood 21 

CHAPTER HI, 
Makhood : First Visit to Europe . . . .31 

CHAPTER IV. 
Society AND "Salmagundi" 43 

CHAPTER V. 
The E^ickebbocker Period 58 

CHAPTER VI. 
Life in Europe : Literary Activity ... 94 

CHAPTER VII. 
In Spain 141 



yi CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Return to America : Sunkyside : The Mission to 

filADRID 158 



CHAPTER IX. 
The Characteristic Works . . . ... 190 

CHAPTER X. 
Last Years: The Character of his Literature 282 



WASHIS-GTOIT lEYma. 



CHAPTER I. 

PEELIMINAEY. 

It is over twenty years since the death 
of Washington Irving removed that per- 
sonal presence which is always a powerful, 
and sometimes the sole, stimulus to the sale 
of an author's books, and which strongly 
affects the contemporary judgment of their 
merits. It is nearly a century since his 
birth, which was almost coeval with that of 
the Republic, for it took place the year the 
British troops evacuated the city of New 
York, and only a few months before General 
Washington marched in at the head of the 
Continental army and took possession of the 
metropolis. For fifty years Irving charmed 
and instructed the American people, and 
was the author who held, on the whole, the 
first place in their affections. As he was 
1 



2 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the first to lift American literature into the 
popular respect of Europe, so for a long 
time he was the chief representative of the 
American name in the world of letters. 
During this period probably no citizen of 
the Republic, except the Father of his 
Country, had so wide a reputation as his 
namesake, Washington Irving. 

It is time to inquire what basis this great 
reputation had in enduring qualities, what 
portion of it was due to local and favoring 
circumstances, and to make an impartial 
study of the author's literary rank and 
achievement. 

The tenure of a literary reputation is the 
most uncertain and fluctuating of all. The 
popularity of an author seems to depend 
quite as much upon fashion or whim, as 
upon a change in taste or in literary form. 
Not only is contemporary judgment often at 
fault, but posterity is perpetually revising 
its opinion. We are accustomed to say that 
the final rank of an author is settled by 
the slow consensus of mankind in disregard 
of the critics ; but the rank is after all de- 
termined by the few best minds of any 
given age, and the popular judgment has 



PRELIMINARY. 3 

very little to do with it. Immediate pop- 
ularity, or currency, is a nearly valueless cri- 
terion of merit. The settling of high rank 
even in the popular mind does not nec- 
essarily give currency ; the so-called best 
authors are not those most widely read at 
any given time. Some who attain the 
position of classics are subject to variations 
in popular and even in scholarly favor or 
neglect. It happens to the princes of' litera- 
ture to encounter .periods of varying dura- 
tion when their names are revered and their 
books are not read. The growth, not to 
say the fluctuation, of Shakespeare's popu- 
larity is one of the curiosities of literary 
history. Worshiped by his contemporaries, 
apostrophized by Milton only fourteen years 
after his death as the " dear son of memory, 
great air of fame," — 

" So sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, 
That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die," — 

he was neglected by the succeeding age, 
the subject of violent extremes of opinion 
in the eighteenth century, and so lightly es- 
teemed b}^ some that Hume could doubt if 
he were a poet " capable of furnishing a 
proper entertainment to a refined and in- 



4 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

telligent audience," and attribute to the 
rudeness of his " disproportioned and mis- 
shapen " genius the " reproach of bar- 
barism " which the English nation had 
suffered from all its neighbors. Only re- 
cently has the study of him by English 
scholars — I do not refer to the verbal 
squabbles over the text — been propor- 
tioned to his preeminence, and his fame is 
still slowly asserting itself among foreign 
peoples. 

There are already signs that we are not 
to accept as the final judgment upon the 
English contemporaries of Irving the cur- 
rency their writings have now. In the 
case of Walter Scott, although there is al- 
ready visible a reaction against a reaction, 
he is not, at least in America, read by this 
generation as he was by the last. This 
faint reaction is no doubt a sign of a deeper 
change impending in philosophic and meta- 
physical speculation. An age is apt to take 
a lurch in a body one way or another, and 
those most active in it do not always per- 
ceive how largely its direction is determined 
by what are called mere systems of philoso- 
phy. The novelist may not know whether 



PRELIMINARY. 5 

he is steered by Kant, or Hegel, or Scho- 
penhauer. The humanitarian novel, the fic- 
tions of passion, of realism, of doubt, the 
poetry and the essays addressed to the mood 
of unrest, of questioning, to the scientific 
spirit and to the shifting attitudes of social 
change and reform, claim the attention of 
an age that is completely adrift in regard 
to the relations of the supernatural and the 
material, the ideal and the real. It would 
be natural if in such a time of confusion the 
calm tones of unexaggerated literary art 
should be not so much heeded as the more 
strident voices. Yet when the passing 
fashion of this day is succeeded by the 
fashion of another, that which is most ac- 
ceptable to the thought and feeling of the 
present may be without an audience ; and 
it may happen that few recent authors will 
be read as Scott and the writers of the 
early part of this century will be read. It 
may, however, be safely predicted that 
those writers of fiction worthy to be called 
literary artists will best retain their hold 
who have faithfully painted the manners of 
their own time. 

Irving has shared the neglect of the writ- 



6 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ers of his generation. It would be strange, 
even in America, if this were not so. The 
development of American literature (using 
the term in its broadest sense) in the past 
forty years is greater than could have been 
expected in a nation which had its ground 
to clear, its wealth to win, and its new gov- 
ernmental experiment to adjust ; if we con- 
fine our view to the last twenty years, the 
national production is vast in amount and 
encouraging in quality. It suffices to say 
of it here, in a general way, that the most 
vigorous activity has been in the depart- 
ments of history, of applied science, and the 
discussion of social and economic problems. 
Although pure literature has made consid- 
erable gains, the main achievement has 
been in other directions. The audience of 
the literary artist has been less than that of 
the reporter of affairs and discoveries and 
the special correspondent. The age is too 
busy, too harassed, to have time for litera- 
ture ; and enjoyment of writings like those 
of Irving depends upon leisure of mind. 
The mass of readers have cared less for 
form than for novelty and news and the sat- 
isfying of a recently awakened curiosity. 



PRELIMINART. 7' 

This was inevitable in an era of journalism, 
one marked by the marvelous results at- 
tained in the fields of religion, science, and 
art, by the adoption of the comparative 
method. Perhaps there is no better illus- 
tration of the vigor and intellectual activity 
of the age than a living English writer, who 
has traversed and illuminated almost every 
province of modern thought, controversy, 
and scholarship ; but who supposes that 
Mr. Gladstone has added anything to per- 
manent literature? He has been an im- 
mense force in his own time, and his influ- 
ence the next generation will still feel and 
acknowledge, while it reads not the writ- 
ings of Mr. Gladstone but may be those of 
the author of " Henry Esmond " and the 
biographer of " Rab and his Friends." De 
Quincey divides literature into two sorts, 
the literature of power and the literature 
of knowledge. The latter is of necessity for 
to-day only, and must be revised to-morrow. 
The definition has scarcely De Quincey's 
usual verbal felicity, but we can apprehend 
the distinction he intended to make. 

It is to be noted also, and not with re- 
gard to Irving only, that the attention of 



8 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

young and old readers has been so occupied 
and distracted by the flood of new books, 
written with the single purpose of satisfy- 
ing the wants of the day, produced and dis- 
tributed with marvelous cheapness and fa- 
cility, that the standard works of approved 
literature remain for the most part unread 
upon the shelves. Thirty years ago Irving 
was much read in America by young peo- 
ple, and his clear style helped to form a 
good taste and correct literary habits. It 
is not so now. The manufacturers of books, 
periodicals, and newspapers for the young 
keep the rising generation fully occupied, 
with a result to its taste and mental fibre 
which, to say the least of it, must be 
regarded with some apprehension. The 
" plant," in the way of money and writing 
industry invested in the production of juve- 
nile literature, is so large and is so perma- 
nent an interest, that it requires more dis- 
criminating consideration than can be given 
to it in a passing paragraph. 

Besides this, and with respect to Irving 
in particular, there has been in America a 
criticism — sometimes called the destruc- 
tive, sometimes the Donnybrook Fair — 



PRELIMINARY. 9 

that found " earnestness " the only thing in 
the world amusing, that brought to literary- 
art the test of utility, and disparaged what 
is called the " Knickerbocker School " (as- 
suming Irving to be the head of it) as want- 
ing in purpose and virility, a merely ro- 
mantic development of the post-Revolution- 
ary period. And it has been to some extent 
the fashion to damn with faint admiration 
the pioneer if not the creator of American 
literature as the " genial " Irving. 

Before I pass to an outline of the career 
of this representative American author, it is 
necessary to refer for a moment to certain 
periods, more or less marked, in our litera- 
ture. I do not include in it the works of 
writers either born in England or com- 
pletely English in training, method, and tra- 
dition, showing nothing distinctively Amer- 
ican in their writings except the incidental 
subject. The first authors whom we may 
regard as characteristic of the new country 
— leaving out the productions of specula- 
tive theology — devoted their genius to pol- 
itics. It is in the political writings imme- 
diately preceding and following the Revolu- 
tion — such as those of Hamilton, Madison, 



10 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Jay, Franklin, Jefferson — that the new 
birth of a nation of original force and ideas 
is declared. It has been said, and I think 
the statement can be maintained, that for 
any parallel to those treatises on the nature 
of government, in respect to originality and 
vigor, we must go back to classic times. 
But literature, that is, literature which is 
an end in itself and not a means to some- 
thing else, did not exist in America be- 
fore Irving. Some foreshadowings (the au- 
tobiographical fragment of Franklin was 
not published till 1817) of its coming may 
be traced, but there can be no question that 
his writings were the first that bore the 
national literary stamp, that he first made 
the hationi^conscious of its gift and op- 
portunity, and that he first announced to 
trans- Atlantic readers the entrance of Amer- 
ica upon the literary field. For some time 
he was our only man of letters who had a 
reputation beyond seas. 

Irving was not, however, the first Amer- 
ican who made literature a profession and 
attempted to live on its fruits. This dis- 
tinction belongs to Charles Brockden Brown, 
who was born in Philadelphia, January 17, 



PRELIMINARY. H 

1771, and, before the appearance in a news- 
paper of Irving's juvenile essaj^s in 1802, 
bad published several romances, which were 
bailed as original and striking productions 
by his contemporaries, and even attracted 
attention in England. As late as 1820 a 
prominent British review gives Mr. Brown 
the first rank in our literature as an origi- 
nal writer and characteristically American. 
The reader of to-day who has the curiosity 
to inquire into the correctness of this opin- 
ion will, if he is familiar with the romances 
of the eighteenth century, find little origi- 
nality in Brown's stories, and nothing dis- 
tinctively American. The figures who are 
moved in them seem to be transported from 
the pages of foreign fiction to the New 
World, not as it was, but as it existed in 
the minds of European sentimentalists. 

Mr. Brown received a fair education in a 
classical school in his native city, and studied 
law, which he abandoned on the threshold 
of practice, as Irving did, and for the same 
reason. He had the genuine literary im- 
pulse, which he obeyed against all the ar- 
guments and entreaties of his friends. Un- 
fortunately, with a delicate physical consti- 



12 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

tution he had a mind of romantic sensibil- 
ity, and in the comparative inaction imposed 
by his frail health he indulged in vision- 
ary speculation, and in solitary wanderings 
which developed the habit of sentimental 
musing. It was natural that such reveries 
should produce morbid romances. The 
tone of them is that of the unwholesome 
fiction of his time, in which the "seducer" 
is a prominent and recognized character in 
social life, and female virtue is the frail 
sport of opportunity. Brown's own life 
was fastidiously correct, but it is a curious 
commentary upon his estimate of the nat- 
ural power of resistance to vice in his time, 
that he regarded his feeble health as good 
fortune, since it protected him from the 
temptations of youth and virility. 

While he was reading law he constantly 
exercised his pen in the composition of es- 
says, some of which were published under 
the title of the " Rhapsodist ; " but it was 
not until 1797 that his career as an author 
began, by the publication of " Alcuin : a Dia- 
logue on the Rights of Women." This and 
the romances which followed it show the 
powerful influence upon him of the school of 



PRELIMINARY. 13 

fiction of William Godwin, and the move- 
ment of emancipation of which Mary Woll- 
stonecraft was the leader. The period of 
social and political ferment during which 
" Alcuin " was put forth was not unlike that 
which may be said to have reached its 
height in extravagance and millennial expec- 
tation in 1847-48. In " Alcuin " are antici- 
pated most of the subsequent discussions on 
the right of women to property and to self- 
control, and the desirability of revising the 
marriage relation. The injustice of any more 
enduring union than that founded upon the 
inclination of the hour is as ingeniously 
urged in " Alcuin " as it has been in our own 
day. 

Mr. Brown's reputation rests upon six 
romances: " Wieland," " Ormond," "Ar- 
thur Mervyn," ''Edgar Huntly," "Clara 
Howard," and " Jane Talbot." The first five 
were published in the interval between the 
spring of 1798 and the summer of 1801, in 
which he completed his thirtieth year. 
" Jane Talbot " appeared somewhat later. 
In scenery and character, these romances 
are entirely unreal. There is in them an 
affectation of psychological purpose which 



14 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

is not very well sustained,. and a somewhat 
clumsy introduction of supernatural machin- 
ery. Yet they have a power of engaging 
the attention in the rapid succession of start- 
ling and uncanny incidents and in advent- 
ures in which the horrible is sometimes 
dangerously near the ludicrous. Brown had 
not a particle of humor. Of literary art 
there is little, of invention considerable; 
and while the style is to a certain extent 
unformed and immature, it is neither feeble 
nor obscure, and admirably serves the au- 
thor's purpose of creating what the children 
call a " crawly " impression. There is un- 
deniable power in many of his scenes, nota- 
bly in the descriptions of the yellow fever 
in Philadelphia, found in the romance of 
" Arthur Mervyn." There is, however, 
over all of them a false and pallid light ; his 
characters are seen in a spectral atmosphere. 
If a romance is to be judged not by literary 
rules, but by its power of making an im- 
pression upon the mind, such power as a 
ghastly story has, told by the chimney- 
corner on a tempestuous night, then Mr. 
Brown's romances cannot be dismissed with- 
out a certain recognition. But they never 



PRELIMINARY. 15 

represented anything distinctively Ameri- 
can, and their influence upon American lit- 
erature is scarcely discernible. 

Subsequently Mr. Brown became inter- 
ested in political subjects, and wrote upon 
them with vigor and sagacity. He was the 
editor of two short-lived literary periodicals 
which were nevertheless useful in their day : 
" The Monthly Magazine and American Re- 
view," begun in New York in the spring 
of 1798, and ending in the autumn of 1800 ; 
and " The Literary Magazine and American 
Register," which was established in Phila- 
delphia in 1803. It was for this periodical 
that Mr. Brown, who visited Irving in that 
year, sought in vain to enlist the service of 
the latter, who, then a youth of nineteen, 
had a little reputation as the author of 3ome 
humorous essays in the "Morning Chroni- 
cle " newspaper. 

Charles Brockden Brown died, the victim 
of a lingering consumption, in 1810, at the 
age of thirty-nine. In pausing for a moment 
upon his incomplete and promising career, 
we should not forget to recall the strong 
impression he made upon his contemporaries 
as a man of genius, the testimony to the 



16 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

charm of his conversation and the goodness 
of his heart, nor the pioneer service he ren- 
dered to letters before the provincial fetters 
were at all loosened. 

The advent of Cooper, Bryant, and Hal- 
leck, was some twenty years after the rec- 
ognition of Irving, but thereafter the stars 
thicken in our literary sky, and when in 
1832 Irving returned from his long sojourn 
in Europe, he found an immense advance 
in fiction, poetry, and historical composi- 
tion. American literature was not only 
born, — it was able to go alone. We are 
not likely to overestimate the stimulus to 
this movement given by Irving's example, 
and by his success abroad. His leader- 
ship is recognized in the respectful attitude 
towards him of all his contemporaries in 
America. And the cordiality with which 
he gave help whenever it was asked, and 
his eagerness to acknowledge merit in oth- 
ers, secured him the affection of all the lit- 
erary class, which is popularly supposed to 
have a rare appreciation of the defects of 
fellow craftsmen. 

The period from 1830 to 1860 was that 
of our greatest purely literary achievement, 



PRELIMINARY. 17 

and, indeed, most of the greater names of 
to-day were familiar before 1850. Con- 
spicuous exceptions are Motley and Park- 
man and a few belles-lettres writers, whose 
novels and stories mark a distinct literary 
transition since the War of the Rebellion. 
In the period from 1845 to 1860, there was 
a singular development of sentimentalism ; 
it haa been growing before, it did not alto- 
gether disappear at the time named, and it 
was so conspicuous that this may properly 
be called the sentimental era in our litera- 
ture. The causes of it, and its relation to 
our changing national character, are worthy 
the study of the historian. In politics, the 
discussion of constitutional questions, of 
tariffs and finance, had given way to moral 
agitations. Every political movement was 
determined by its relation to slavery. Ec- 
centricities of all sorts were developed. It 
was the era of "transcendentalism" in New 
England, of " come-outers " there and else- 
where, of communistic experiments, of re- 
form notions about marriage, about woman's 
dress, about diet; through the open door 
of abolitionism women appeared upon its 
platform, demanding a various emancipa- 



18 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

tion ; the agitation for total abstinence from 
intoxicating drinks got under full headway, 
urged on moral rather than on the statisti- 
cal and scientific grounds of to-day ; re- 
formed drunkards went about from town to 
town depicting to applauding audiences the 
horrors of delirium tremens, — one of these 
peripatetics led about with him a goat, per- 
haps as a scapegoat and sin-offering; to- 
bacco was as odious as rum; and I remem- 
ber that George Thompson, the eloquent 
apostle of emancipation, during his tour in 
this country, when on one occasion he was 
the cynosure of a protracted antislavery 
meeting at Peterboro, the home of Ger- 
rib Smith, deeply offended some of his co- 
workers, and lost the admiration of many 
of his admirers, the maiden devotees of 
green tea, by his use of snuff. To " lift 
up the voice " and wear long hair were signs 
of devotion to a purpose. 

In that seething time, the lighter litera- 
ture took a sentimental tone, and either 
spread itself in manufactured fine writing, 
or lapsed into a reminiscent and melting 
mood. In a pretty affectation, we were 
asked to meditate upon the old garret, the 



PRELIMINARY. 19 

deserted hearth, the old letters, the old 
well-sweep, the dead baby, the little shoes ; 
we were put into a mood in which we were 
defenseless against the lukewarm flood of 
the Tupperean Philosophy. Even the news- 
papers caught the bathetic tone. Every 
" local " editor breathed his woe over the 
incidents of the police court, the falling leaf, 
the tragedies of the boarding-house, in the 
most lachrymose periods he could command, 
and let us never lack fine writing, whatever 
might be the dearth of news. I need not 
say how suddenly and completely this affec- 
tation was laughed out of sight by the com- 
ing of the " humorous " writer, whose ex- 
istence is justified by the excellent service 
he performed in clearing the tearful atmos- 
phere. His keen and mocking method, 
which is quite distinct from the humor of 
Goldsmith and Irving, and differs, in degree 
at least, from the comic almanac exaggera- 
tion and coarseness which preceded it, puts 
its foot on every bud of sentiment, holds 
few things sacred, and refuses to regard 
anything in life seriously. But it has no 
mercy for any sham. 

I refer to this sentimental era — remem- 



20 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

bering that its literary manifestation was 
only a surface disease, and recognizing fully 
the value of the great moral movement in 
purifying the national life — because many 
regard its literary weakness as a legitimate 
outgrowth of the Knickerbocker School, 
and hold Irving in a manner responsible for 
it. But I find nothing in the manly senti- 
ment and true tenderness of Irving to war- 
rant the sentimental gush of his followers, 
who missed his corrective humor as com- 
pletely as they failed to catch his literary 
art. Whatever note of localism there was 
in the Knickerbocker School, however dilet- 
tante and unfruitful it was, it was not the 
legitimate heir of the broad and eclectic 
genius of Irving. The nature of that gen- 
ius we shall see in his life. 



CHAPTER 11. 
BOYHOOD. 

Washington Ikving was born in the 
city of New York, April 3, 1783. He was 
tlie eighth son of William and Sarah Ir- 
ving, and the youngest of eleven children, 
tliree of whom died in infancy. His par- 
ents, though of good origin, began life in 
humble circumstances. His father was born 
on the island of Shapinska. His family, 
one of the most respectable in Scotland, 
traced its descent from William De Irwyn, 
the secretary and armor-bearer of Robert 
Bruce ; but at the time of the birth of Will- 
iam Irving its fortunes had gradually de-- 
cayed, and the lad sought his livelihood,- 
according to the habit of the adventurous 
Orkney Islanders, on the sea. 

It was during the French War, and while 
he was serving as a petty officer in an 
armed packet plying between Falmouth and 
New York, that he met Sarah Sanders, a 



22 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

beautiful girl, the only daughter of John 
and Anna Sanders, who had the distinction 
of being the granddaughter of an English 
curate. The youthful pair were married in 
1761, and two years after embarked for 
New York, where they landed July 18, 
1763. Upon settling in New York Will- 
iam Irving quit the sea and took to trade, 
in which he was successful until his busi- 
ness was broken up by the Revolutionary 
War. In this contest he was a staunch 
Whig, and suffered for his opinions at the 
hands of the British occupants of the city, 
and both he and his wife did much to alle- 
viate the misery of the American prisoners. 
In this charitable ministry his wife, who 
possessed a rarely generous and sympathetic 
nature, was especially zealous, supplying 
the prisoners with food from her own table, 
visiting those who were ill, and furnishing 
them with clothing and other necessaries. 

Washington was born in a house on Will- 
iam Street, about half-way between Fulton 
and John; the following year the family 
moved across the way into one of the quaint 
structures of the time, its gable end with 
attic window towards the street, the fash- 



BOYHOOD. 23 

ion of which, and very likely the bricks, 
came from Holland. In this homestead the 
lad grew up, and it was not pulled down till 
1849, ten years before his death. The pa- 
triot army occupied the city. *' Washing- 
ton's work is ended," said the mother, ''and 
the child shall be named after him." When 
the first President was again in New York, 
the first seat of the new government, a 
Scotch maid-servant of the family, catching 
the popular enthusiasm, one day followed 
the hero into a shop and presented the lad 
to him. '* Please, your honor," said Lizzie,. 
all aglow, " here 's a bairn was named. after 
you." And the grave Virginian placedjiis 
hand on the boy's head and gave him his 
blessing. The touch could not have been 
more efficacious, though it might have lin- 
gered longer, if he had known he was pro- 
pitiating his future biographer. 

New York at the time of our author's 
birth was a rural city of about twenty-three 
thousand inhabitants, clustered about the 
Battery. It did not extend northward to 
the site of the present City Hall Park ; and 
beyond, then and for several years after- 
wards, were only country residences, or- 



24 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

chards, and corn-fields. The city was half 
burned down durnig the war, and had 
emerged from it in a dilapidated condition. 
There was still a marked separation between 
the Dutch and the English residents, though 
the Irvings seem to have been on terms of 
intimacy with the best of both nationalities. 
The habits of living were primitive ; the 
manners were agreeably free ; conviviality 
at the table was the fashion, and strong ex- 
pletives had not gone out of use in conver- 
sation. Society was the reverse of intellect- 
ual : the aristocracy were the merchants 
and traders ; what literary culture found 
expression was formed on English models, 
dignified and plentifully garnished with 
Latin and Greek allusions ; the commercial 
spirit ruled, and the relaxations and amuse- 
ments partook of its hurry and excitement. 
In their gay, hospitable, and mercurial char- 
acter, the inhabitants were true progenitors 
of the present metropolis. A newspaper 
had been established in 1732, and a theatre 
had existed since 1750. Although the town 
had a rural aspect, with its quaint dormer- 
window houses, its straggling lanes and 
roads, and the water-pumps in the middle 



BOYHOOD. 25 

of the streets, it had the aspirations of a 
city, and already much of the metropoUtan 
air. 

These were the surroundings in which the 
boy's literary talent was to develop. His 
father was a deacon in the Presbyterian 
church, a sedate, God-fearing man, with the 
strict severity of the Scotch Covenanter, 
serious in his intercourse with his family, 
without sympathy in the amusements of his 
children ; he was not without tenderness in 
his nature, but the exhibition of it was re- 
pressed on principle, — a man of high char- 
acter and probity, greatly esteemed by his 
associates. He endeavored to bring up his 
children in sound religious principles, and 
to leave no room in their lives for triviality. 
One of the two weekly half-holidays was 
required for the catechism, and the only re- 
laxation from the three church services on 
Sunday was the reading of " Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress." This cold and severe discipline at 
home would have been intolerable but for 
the more lovingly demonstrative and impul- 
sive character of the mother, whose gentle 
nature and fine intellect won the tender 
veneration of her children. Of the father 



26 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

they stood in awe ; his conscientious piety- 
failed to waken any religious sensibility in 
them, and they revolted from a teaching 
which seemed to regard everything that 
was pleasant as wicked. The mother, 
brought up an Episcopalian, conformed to 
the religious forms and worship of her hus- 
band, but she was never in sympathy w^th 
his rigid views. The children were re- 
pelled from the creed of their father, and 
subsequently all of them except one became 
attached to the Episcopal Church. Wash- 
ington, in order to make sure of his escape, 
and feel safe while he was still constrained 
to attend his father's church, went stealth- 
ily to Trinity Church at an early age, and 
received the rite of confirmation. The boy 
was full of vivacity, drollery, and innocent 
mischief. His sportiveness and disinclina- 
tion to religious seriousness gave his mother 
some anxiety, and she would look at him, 
says his biographer, with a half mournful 
admiration, and exclaim, " O Washington ! 
if you were only good ! " He had a love of 
music, which became later in life a passion, 
and great fondness for the theatre. The 
stolen delight of the theatre he first tasted 



BOYHOOD. 27 

in company with a boy who was somewhat 
his senior, but destined to be his literary 
comrade, — James K. Paulding, whose sister 
was the wife of Irving' s brother William. 
Whenever he could afford this indulgence, 
he stole away early to the theatre in John 
Street, remained until it was time to return 
to the family prayers at nine, after which 
he would retire to his room, slip through 
his window and down the roof to a back 
alley, and return to enjoy the after-piece. 

Young Irving's school education was des- 
ultory, pursued under several more or less 
incompetent masters, and was over at the 
age of sixteen. The teaching does not 
seem to have had much discipline or so- 
lidity ; he studied Latin a few months, but 
made no other incursion into the classics. 
The handsome, tender-hearted, truthful, sus- 
ceptible boy was no doubt a dawdler in rou- 
tine studies, but he assimilated what suited 
him. He found his food in such pieces of 
English literature as were floating about, in 
*' Robinson Crusoe " and " Sinbad ; " at ten 
he was inspired by a translation of " Or- 
lando Furioso ; " he devoured books of voy- 
ages and travel ; he could turn a neat verse, 



28 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and his scribbling propensities were exer- 
cised in the composition of childish plays. 
The fact seems to be that the boy was a 
dreamer and sannterer ; he himself says that 
he used to wander about the pier heads in 
fine weather, watch the ships departing on 
long voyages, and dream of going to the 
ends of the earth. His brothers Peter and 
John had been sent to Columbia College, 
and it is probable that Washington would 
have had the same advantage if he had not 
shown a disinclination to methodical study. 
At the age of sixteen he entered a law office, 
but he was a heedless student, and never ac- 
quired either a taste for the profession or 
much knowledge of law. While he sat in 
the law office, he read literature, and made 
considerable progress in his self-culture ; but 
he liked rambling and society quite as well 
.as books. In 1798 we find him passing a 
summer holiday in Westchester County, 
and exploring with his gun the Sleepy Hol- 
low region which he was afterwards to make 
an enchanted realm ; and in 1800 he made 
his first voyage up the Hudson, the beauties 
of which he was the first to celebrate, on a 
visit to a married sister who lived in the 



BOYHOOD. 29 

Mohawk Valley. In 1802 lie became a law 
clerk in the office of Josiali Ogdern^ Hoff- 
man, and began that enduring intimacy 
with the refined and charming Hoffman 
family which was so deeply to influence all 
his life. His health had always been deli- 
cate, and his friends were now alarmed by 
symptoms of pulmonary weakness. This 
physical disability no doubt had much to 
do with his disinclination to severe study. 
For the next two or three years much time 
was consumed in excursions up the Hudson 
and the Mohawk, and in adventurous jour- 
neys as far as the wilds of Ogdensburg and 
to Montreal, to the great improvement of 
his physical condition, and in the enjoyment 
of the gay society of Albany, Schenectady, 
Ballston, and Saratoga Springs. These ex- 
plorations and visits gave him material for 
future use, and exercised his pen in agree- 
able correspondence ; but his tendency at 
this time, and for several years afterwards, 
was to the idle life of a man of society. 
Whether the literary impulse which was 
born in him would have ever insisted upon 
any but an occasional and fitful expression, 
except for the necessities of his subsequent 
condition, is doubtful. 



so WASHINGTON IRVING. 

IrviDg's first literary publication was a 
series of letters, signed Jonathan Oldstj^le, 
contributed in 1802 to the " Morning 
Chronicle," a newspaper then recently es- 
tablished by his brother Peter.' The atten- 
tion that these audacious satires of the thea- 
tre, the actors, and their audience attracted 
is evidence of the literary poverty of the 
period. The letters are open imitations of 
the " Spectator " and the " Tatler," and al- 
though sharp upon local follies are of no 
consequence at present except as foreshad- 
owing the sensibility and quiet humor of the 
future author, and his chivalrous devotion to 
woman. What is worthy of note is that a 
boy of nineteen should turn aside from his 
caustic satire to protest against the cruel 
and unmanly habit of jesting at ancient 
maidens. It was enough for him that they 
are women, and possess the strongest claim 
upon our admiration, tenderness, and pro- 
tection. 



CHAPTER III. 

MANHOOD; rmST VISIT TO EUROPE. 

Irving's health, always delicate, contin- 
ued so much impaired when he came of age, 
in 1804, that his brothers determined to 
send him to Europe. On the 19th of May 
he took passage for Bordeaux in a sailing 
vessel, which reached the mouth of the 
Garonne on the 25th of June. His con- 
sumptive appearance when he went on 
board caused the captain to say to himself, 
" There 's a chap who will go overboard be- 
fore we get across ; " but his condition was 
much improved by the voyage. 

He stayed six weeks at Bordeaux to im- 
prove himself in the language, and then set 
out for the Mediterranean. In the diligence 
he had some merry companions, and the 
party amused itself on the way. It was 
their habit to stroll about the towns in 
which they stopped, and talk with whomever 
they met. Among his companions was a 



32 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

young French officer and an eccentric, gar- 
rulous doctor from America. At Tonneins, 
on the Garonne, they entered a house where 
a number of girls were quilting. The girls 
gave Irving a needle and set him to work. 
He could not understand their patois, and 
they could not comprehend his bad French, 
and they got on very merrily. At last the 
little doctor told them that the interesting 
young man was an English prisoner whom 
the French officer had in custody. Their 
merriment at once gave place to pity."^ 
" Ah ! le pauvre gar^on ! " said one to an- 
other ; " he is merry, however, in all his 
trouble." '' And what will they do with 
him ? " asked a young woman. " Oh, noth- 
ing of consequence," replied the doctor; 
" perhaps shoot him, or cut off his head." 
The good souls were much distressed ; they 
brought him wine, loaded his pockets- with 
fruit, and bade him good-by with a hundred 
benedictions. Over forty years after, Ir- 
ving made a detour, on his way from Mad- 
rid to Paris, to visit Tonneins, drawn thither 
solely by the recollection of this incident, 
vaguely hoping perhaps to apologize to the 
tender-hearted villagers for the imposition. 



MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE. 33 

His conscience had always pricked him for 
it ; " It was a shame," he said, " to leave 
them with such painful impressions." The 
quilting party had dispersed by that time. 
" I believe I recognized the house," he says ; 
" and I saw two or three old women who 
might once have formed part of the merry 
group of girls ; but I doubt whether they 
recognized, in the stout elderly gentleman, 
thus rattling in his carriage through their 
streets, the pale young English prisoner of 
forty years since." 

Bonaparte was emperor. The whole coun- 
try was full of suspicion. The police sus- 
pected the traveler, notwithstanding his 
passport, of being an Englishman and a 
spy, and dogged him at every step. He 
arrived at Avignon, full of enthusiasm at 
the thought of seeing the tomb of Laura. 
" Judge of my surprise," he writes, " my 
disappointment, and my indignation, when 
I was told that the church, tomb, and all 
were utterly demolished in the time of the 
Revolution. Never did the Revolution, its 
authors and its consequences, receive a more 
heart}^ and sincere execration than at that 
moment. Throughout the whole of my 



34 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

journey I had found reason to exclaim 
against it for depriving me of some valuable 
curiosity or celebrated monument, but this 
was the severest disappointment it had yet 
occasioned." This view of the Revolution 
is very characteristic of Irving, and perhaps 
the first that would occur to a man of let- 
ters. The journey was altogether disagree- 
able, even to a traveler used to the rough 
jaunts in an American wilderness : the inns 
were miserable ; dirt, noise, and insolence 
reigned without control. But it never was 
our author's habit to stroke the world the 
wrong way ; " When I cannot get a dinner 
to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste 
to suit my dinner." And he adds : " There 
is nothing I dread more than to be taken 
for one of the Smell-fungi of this world. I 
therefore endeavor to be pleased with every- 
thing about me, and with the masters, mis- 
tresses, and servants of the inns, particu- 
larly when I perceive they have ' all the 
dispositions in the world ' to serve me ; as 
Sterne says, 'It is enough for heaven and 
ought to be enough for me.' " 

The traveler was detained at Marseilles, 
and five weeks at Nice, on one frivolous 



MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE. 35 

pretext of the police or another, and did not 
reach Genoa till the 20th of October. At 
Genoa there was a delightful society, and 
Irving seems to have been more attracted 
by that than by the historical curiosities. 
His health was restored, and his spirits re- 
covered elasticity in the genial hospitality ; 
he was surrounded by friends to whom he 
became so much attached that it was with 
pain he parted from them. The gayety of 
city life, the levees of the Doge, and the 
balls were not unattractive to the hand- 
some young man ; but what made Genoa 
seem like home to him was his intimacy 
with a few charming families, among whom 
he mentions those of Mrs. Bird, Madame 
Gabriac, and Lady Shaftesbury. From the 
latter he experienced the most cordial and 
unreserved friendship ; she greatly inter- 
ested herself in his future, and furnished 
him with letters from herself and the nobil- 
ity to persons of the first distinction in 
Florence, Rome, and Naples. 

Late in December Irving sailed for Sic- 
ily in a Genoese packet. Off the island 
of Planoca it was overpowered and capt- 
ured by a little pickaroon, with lateen sails 



36 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and a couple of guns, and a most villainous 
crew, in poverty-stricken garments, rusty- 
cutlasses in their hands and stilettos and 
pistols stuck in their waistbands. The pi- 
rates thoroughly ransacked the vessel, opened 
all the trunks and portmanteaus, but found 
little that they wanted except brandy and 
provisions. In releasing the vessel, the rag- 
amuffins seem to have had a touch of hu- 
mor, for they gave the captain a " receipt " 
for Avliat they had taken, and an order on 
the British consul at Messina to pay for the 
same. This old-time courtesy was hardly 
appreciated at the moment. 

Irving passed a couple of months in Sic- 
ily, exploring with some thoroughness the 
ruins, and making several perilous inland 
trips, for the country was infested by ban- 
ditti. One journey from Syracuse through 
the centre of the island revealed more 
wretchedness than Irving supposed existed 
in the world. The half-starved peasants 
lived in wretched cabins and often in cav- 
erns, amid filth and vermin. " God knows 
my mind never suffered so much as on this 
journey," he writes, " when I saw such 
scenes of want and misery continually be- 



MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE. 37 

fore me, without the power of ejffectually 
relieving them." His stay in the ports was 
made agreeable by the officers of American 
ships cruising in those waters. Every ship 
was a home, and every officer a friend. He 
had a boundless capacity for good-fellow- 
ship. At Messina he chronicles the brill- 
iant spectacle of Lord Nelson's fleet passing 
through the straits in search of the French 
fleet that had lately got out of Toulon. In 
less than a year, Nelson's young admirer was 
one of the thousands that pressed to see 
the remains of the great admiral as they 
lay in state at Greenwich, wrapped in the 
flag that had floated at the mast-head of the 
Victory. 

From Sicily he passed over to Naples in 
a fruit boat which dodged the cruisers, and 
reached Rome the last of March. Here he 
remained several weeks, absorbed by the 
multitudinous attractions. In Italy the 
worlds of music and painting were for the 
first time opened to him. Here he made 
the acquaintance of Washington Allston, 
and the influence of this friendship came 
near changing the whole course of his life. 
To return home to the dry study of the 



38 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

law was not a pleasing prospect ; the mas- 
terpieces of art, the serenity of the sky, the 
nameless charm which hangs about an 
Italian landscape, and Allston's enthusiasm 
as an artist, nearly decided him to remain 
in Rome and adopt the profession of a 
painter. But after indulging in this dream, 
it occurred to him that it was not so much 
a natural aptitude for the art as the lovely 
scenery and Allston's companionship that 
had attracted him to it. He saw something 
of Roman society ; Torlonia the banker 
was especially assiduous in his attentions. 
It turned out when Irving came to make his 
adieus that Torlonia had all along supposed 
him a relative of General Washington. 
This mistake is offset by another that oc- 
curred later, after Irving had attained some 
celebrity in England. An English lady 
passing through an Italian gallery with her 
daughter stopped before a bust of Wash- 
ington. The daughter said, " Mother, who 
was Washington ? " " Why, my dear, don't 
you know ? " was the astonished reply. 
" He wrote the ' Sketch-Book.' " It was at 
the house of Baron von Humboldt, the Prus- 
sian minister, that Irving first met Madame 



MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE. 39 

de Stael, who was then enjoying the celeb- 
rity of " Delphine." He was impressed with 
her strength of mind, and somewhat as- 
tounded at the amazing flow of her conver- 
sation, and the question upon question with 
which she plied him. 

In May the wanderer was in Paris, and re- 
mained there four months, studying French 
and frequenting the theatres with exem- 
plary regularity. Of his life in Paris there 
are only the meagrest reports, and he re- 
cords no observations upon political affairs. 
The town fascinated him more than any 
other in Europe ; he notes that the city is 
rapidly beautifying under the emperor, that 
the people seem gay and happy, and Vive 
la bagatelle! is again the burden of their 
song. His excuse for remissness in corre- 
spondence was, " I am a young man and in 
Paris." 

By way of the Netherlands he reached 
London in October and remained in Eng- 
land till January. The attraction in London 
seems to have been the theatre, where he 
saw John Kemble, Cooke, and Mrs. Siddons. 
Kemble's acting seemed to him too studied 
and over-labored ; he had the disadvantage 



40 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

of a voice lacking rich, base tones. What- 
ever he did was judiciously conceived and 
perfectly executed ; it satisfied the head, 
but rarely touched the heart. Only in the 
part of Zanga was the young critic com- 
pletely overpowered by his acting, — Kemble 
seemed to have forgotten himself. Cooke, 
who had less range than Kemble, com- 
pletely satisfied Irving as lago. Of Mrs. 
Siddons, who was then old, he scarcely dares 
to give his impressions lest he should be 
thought extravagant. " Her looks," he says, 
*' her voice, her gestures, delighted me. She 
penetrated in a moment to my heart. She 
froze and melted it by turns ; a glance of 
her eye, a start, an exclamation, thrilled 
through my whole frame. The more I see 
her the more I admire her. I hardly breathe 
while she is on the stage. She works up 
my feelings till I am like a mere child," 
Some years later, after the publication of 
the " Sketch-Book," in a London assembly 
Irving was presented to the tragedy queen, 
who had left the stage, but had not laid 
aside its stately manner. She looked at 
him a moment, and then in a deep-toned 
voice slowly enunciated, " You 've made me 



MANHOOD: FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE. 41 

weep." The author was so disconcerted 
that he said not a word, and retreated in 
confusion. After the pubHcation of " Brace- 
bridge Hall " he met her in company again, 
and was persuaded to go through the ordeal 
of another presentation. The stately woman 
fixed her eyes on him as before, and slowly 
said, " You 've made me weep again." This 
time the bashful author acquitted himself 
with more honor. 

This first sojourn abroad was not imme- 
diately fruitful in a literary way, and need 
not further detain us. It was the irresolute 
pilgrimage of a man who had not yet re- 
ceived his vocation. Everywhere he was 
received in the best society, and the charm 
of his manner and his ingenuous nature 
made him everywhere a favorite. He car- 
ried that indefinable passport which society 
recognizes and which needs no vise. He 
saw the people who were famous, the women 
whose recognition is a social reputation ; he 
made many valuable friends ; he frequented 
the theatre, he indulged his passion for the 
opera ; he learned how to dine, and to ap- 
preciate the delights of a brilliant salon; 
he was picking up languages; he was ob- 



42 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

serving nature and men, and especially 
women. That he profited by his loitering 
experience is plain enough afterward, but 
thus far there is little to prophesy that 
Irving would be anything more in life than 
a charming ^(^newr. 



CHAPTER IV. 



On Irving's return to America in Feb- 
ruary, 1806, with reestablished health, life 
did not at first take on a more serious pur- 
pose. He was admitted to the bar, but he 
still halted.i Society more than ever at- 
tracted him and devoured his time. He 
willingly accepted the office of " champion 
at the tea-parties ; " he was one of a knot of 
young fellows of literary tastes and con- 
vivial habits, who delighted to be known 

1 Irving once illustrated his legal acquirements at this 
time by the relation of the following anecdote to his 
nephew: Josiah Ogden Hoffman and Martin Wilkins, 
an effective and witty advocate, had been appointed to 
examine students for admission. One student acquitted 
himself very lamely, and at the supper which it was the 
custom for the candidates to give to the examiners, when 
they passed upon their several merits, Hoffman paused 
in coming to this one, and turning to Wilkins said, as if 
in hesitation, though all the while intending to admit 
him, " Martin, I think he knows a little law." " Make it 
stronger, Jo," was the reply ; " d — '■ — d little." 



44 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

as " The Nine Worthies," or " Lads of Kil- 
kenny." In his letters of this period I de- 
tect a kind of callowness and affectation 
which is not discernible in his foreign letters 
and journal. 

These social worthies had jolly suppers 
at the humble taverns of the city, and 
wilder revelries in an old country house on 
the Passaic, which is celebrated in the *' Sal- 
magundi" papers as Cockloft Hall. ^ We 
are reminded of the change of manners by 
a letter of Mr. Paulding, one of his com- 
rades, written twenty years after, who re- 
calls to mind the keeper of a porter house, 
" who whilom wore a long coat, in the 
pockets whereof he jingled two bushels of 
sixpenny pieces, and whose daughter played 
the piano to the accompaniment of broiled 
oysters." There was some affectation of 
roystering in all this ; but it was a time of 
social good-fellowship, and easy freedom of 
manners in both sexes. At the dinners 
there was much sentimental and bacchana- 
lian singing ; it was scarcely good manners 
not to get a little tipsy; and to be laid 
under the table by the compulsory bumper 
was not to the discredit of a guest. Irving 



SOCIETY AND ''SALMAGUNDI:' 45 

used to like to repeat an anecdote of one of 
his early friends, Henry Ogden, who had 
been at one of these festive meetings. He 
told Irving the next day that in going home 
he had fallen through a grating which had 
been carelessly left open, into a vault be- 
neath. The solitude, he said, was rather 
dismal at first, but several other of the 
guests fell in, in the course of the evening, 
and they had on the whole a pleasant night 
of it. 

These young gentlemen liked to be 
thought " sad dogs." That they were less 
abandoned than they pretended to be the 
sequel of their lives shows : among Irving's 
associates at this time who attained honora- 
ble consideration were John and Gouverneur 
Kemble, Henry Brevoort, Henry Ogden, 
James K. Paulding, and Peter Irving. The 
saving influence for all of them was the re- 
fined households they frequented and the as- 
sociation of women who were high-spirited 
without prudery, and who united purity 
and simplicity with wit, vivacity, and charm 
of manner./ There is some pleasant corre- 
spondence between Irving and Miss Mary 
Fairlie, a belle of the time, who married the 



46 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

tragedian, Thomas A. Cooper; the "fasci- 
nating Fairlie," as Irving calls her, and the 
Sophie Sparkle of the " Salmagundi." Ir- 
ving's susceptibility to the charms and 
graces of women — a susceptibility which 
continued always fresh — was tempered and 
ennobled by the most chivalrous admiration 
for the sex as a whole. He placed them on 
an almost romantic pinnacle, and his actions 
always conformed to his romantic ideal, al- 
though in his writings he sometimes adopts 
the conventional satire which was more com- 
mon fifty years ago than now. In a letter 
to Miss Fairlie, written from Richmond, 
where he was attending the trial of Aaron 
Burr, he expresses his exalted opinion of 
the sex. It was said in accounting for the 
open sympathy of the ladies with the pris- 
oner that Burr had always been a favorite 
with them ; " but I am not inclined," he 
writes, " to account for it in so illiberal a 
manner ; it results from that merciful, that 
heavenly disposition, implanted in the fe- 
male bosom, which ever inclines in favor 
of the accused and the unfortunate. You 
will smile at the high strain in which I 
have indulged ; believe me, it is because I 



SOCIETY AND ''SALMAGUNDIS 47 

feel it ; and I love your sex ten times better 
than ever." ^ 

Personally, Irving must have awakened 
a reciprocal admiration. A drawing by 
Vanderlyn, made in Paris in 1805, and a 
portrait by Jarvis in 1809, present him to 
us in the fresh bloom of manly beauty. 
The face has an air of distinction and gen- 

1 An amusing story in connection with this Kichraond 
visit illustrates the romantic phase of Irviug's character. 
Cooper, Avho was playing at the theatre, needed small- 
clothes for one of his parts; Irving lent him a pair, — 
knee-hreeches being still worn, — and the actor carried 
them off to Baltimore. From that city he wrote that he 
had found in the pocket an emblem of love, a mysterious 
locket of hair in the shape of a heart. The history of it 
is curious : when Irving sojourned at Genoa he Avas much 
taken with the beauty of a young Italian lady, the wife 
of a Frenchman. He had never spoken with her, but one 
evening before his departure he picked up from the floor 
her handkerchief which she had dropped, and with more 
gallantry than honesty carried it off to Sicily. His 
pocket was picked of the precious relic while he was at- 
tending a religious function in Catania, and he wrote to 
his friend Storm, the consul at Genoa, deploring his 
loss. The consul communicated the sad misfortune to 
the lovely Bianca, for that was the lady's name, who 
thereupon sent him a lock of her hair, with the request 
that he would come to see her on his return. He never 
saw her again, but the lock of hair was inclosed in a 
locket and worn about his neck, in memory of a radiant 
vision that had crossed his path and vanished. 



48 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

tie breeding ; the refined lines, the poetic 
chin, the sensitive mouth, the shapely nose, 
the large dreamy eyes, the intellectual fore- 
head, and the clustering brown locks are 
our ideal of the author of the " Sketch- 
Book " and the pilgrim in Spain. His bi- 
ographer, Mr. Pierre M. Irving, has given 
no description of his appearance ; but a 
relative, who saw much of our author in 
his latter years, writes to me : " He had 
dark gray eyes ; a handsome straight nose, 
which might perhaps be called large ; a 
broad, high, full forehead, and a small 
mouth. I should call him of medium 
height, about five feet eight and a half to 
nine inches, and inclined to be a trifle stout. 
There was no peculiarity about his voice ; 
but it was pleasant and had a good intona- 
tion. His smile was exceedingly genial, 
lighting up his whole face and rendering it 
very attractive; while, if he were about to 
say anything humorous, it would beam forth 
from his eyes even before the words were 
spoken. As a young man his face was ex- 
ceedingly liandsome, and his head was well 
covered with dark hair ; but from my earliest 
recollection of him he wore neither whiskers 



SOCIETY AND ''SALMAGUNDI.'' 49 

nor moustaclie, but a dark brown wig, 
which, although it made him look younger, 
concealed a beautifully shaped head." We 
can understand why he was a favorite in 
the society of Baltimore, Washington, Phil- 
adelphia, and Albany, as well as of New 
York, and why he liked to linger here and 
there, sipping the social sweets, like a man 
born to leisure and seemingly idle observa- 
tion of life. 

It was in the midst of these social suc- 
cesses, and just after his admission to the 
bar, that Irving gave the first decided evi- 
dence of the choice of a career. This was 
his association with his eldest brother, Will- 
iam, and Paulding in the production of 
" Salmagundi," a semi-monthly periodical, 
in small duodecimo sheets, which ran with 
tolerable regularity through twenty num- 
bers, and stopped in full tide of success, 
with the whimsical indifference to the pub- 
lic which had characterized its every issue. 
Its declared purpose was " simply to in- 
struct the young, reform the old, correct 
the town, and castigate the age." In man- 
ner and purpose it was an imitation of the 
" Spectator " and the " Citizen of the 
4 



50 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

World," and it must sliare the fate of all 
imitations ; but its wit was not borrowed, 
and its humor was to some extent origi- 
nal ; and so perfectly was it adapted to local 
conditions that it may be profitably read to- 
day as a not untrue reflection of the manners 
and spirit of the time and city. Its amus- 
ing audacity and complacent superiority, 
the mystery hanging about its writers, its 
affectation of indifference to praise or profit, 
its fearless criticism, lively wit, and irre- 
sponsible humor, piqued, puzzled, and de- 
lighted the town. From the first it was 
an immense success; it had a circulation 
in other cities, and many imitations of it 
sprung up. Notwithstanding many affecta- 
tions and puei'ilities it is still readable to 
Americans. Of course, if it were offered 
now to the complex and sophisticated soci- 
ety of New York, it would fail to attract 
anything like the attention it received in 
the days of simplicity and literary dearth ; 
but the same wit, insight, and literary art, 
informed with the modern spirit and turned 
upon the follies and " whim- whams " of the 
metropolis, would doubtless have a great 
measure of success. In Irving*s contribu- 



SOCIETY AND ''SALMAGUNDI:' 51 

tions to it may be traced the germs of nearly 
everything that he did afterwards ; in it he 
tried the various stops of his genius ; he 
discovered his own power ; his career was 
determined ; thereafter it was only a ques- 
tion of energy or necessity. 

In the summer of 1808 there were printed 
at Ballston-Spa — then the resort of fashion 
and the arena of flirtation — seven numbers 
of a duodecimo bagatelle in prose and verse, 
entitled " The Literary Picture Gallery and 
Admonitory Epistles to the Visitors of Ball- 
ston-Spa, by Simeon Senex, Esquire." This 
piece of summer nonsense is not referred to 
by any writer who has concerned himself 
about Irving's life, but there is reason to 
believe that he was a contributor to it if not 
the editor. 1 

In these yellow pages is a melancholy re- 
flection of the gayety and gallantry of the 
Sans Souci hotel seventy years ago. In this 
" Picture Gallery," under the thin disguise 
of initials, are the portraits of well-known 

1 For these stray reminders of the old-time gayety of 
Ballston-Spa, I am indebted to J. Carson Brevoort, Esq., 
whose father was Irving's most intimate friend, and who 
told him that Irving had a hand in them. 



62 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

belles of New York whose charms of person 
and graces of mind would make the present 
reader regret his tardy advent into this 
world, did not the ''- Admonitory Epistles," 
addressed to the same sex, remind him that 
the manners of seventy years ago left much 
to be desired. In respect of the habit of 
swearing, " Simeon " advises " Myra " that 
if ladies were to confine themselves to a 
single round oath, it would be quite suffi- 
cient ; and he objects, when he is at the 
public table, to the conduct of his neighbor 
who carelessly took up "Simeon's" fork and 
used it as a tooth-pick. All this, no doubt, 
passed for wit in the beginning of the cent- 
ury. Punning, broad satire, exaggerated 
compliment, verse which has love for its 
theme and the "sweet bird of Venus " for 
its object, an affectation of gallantry and of 
ennui, with anecdotes of distinguished vis- 
itors, out of which the screaming fun has 
quite evaporated, make up the staple of these 
faded mementos of an ancient watering- 
place. Yet how much superior is our com- 
edy of to-day ? The beauty and the charms 
of the women of two generations ago exist 
only in tradition ; perhaps we should give 



SOCIETY AND '' SALMAGUNDTy 53 

to the wit of that time equal admiration if 
none of it had been preserved. 

Irving, notwithstanding the success of 
" Sahnagundi," did not immediately devote 
himself to literature, nor seem to regard his 
achievements in it as anj^thing more than 
aids to social distinction. He was then, as 
always, greatly influenced by his surround- 
ings. These were unfavorable to literary 
pursuits. Politics was the attractive field 
for preferment and distinction ; and it is 
more than probable that, even after the suc- 
cess of the Knickerbocker history, he would 
have drifted through life, half lawyer and 
half placeman, if the associations and stim- 
ulus of an old civilization, in his second Eu- 
ropean residence, had not fired his ambition. 
Like most young lawyers with little law and 
less clients, he began to dabble in local pol- 
itics. The experiment was not much to his 
taste, and the association and work demand- 
ed, at that time, of a ward politician soon 
disgusted him. jyi' We have toiled through 
the purgatory of an election," he writes to 
the fair Republican, Miss Fairlie, who re- 
joiced in the defeat he and the Federals had 
sustained : — 



y 



54 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

" What makes me the more outrageous is, that 
I got fairly drawn into the vortex, and before the 
third day was expired, I was as deep in mud and 
politics as ever a moderate gentleman would wish 
to be ; and I drank beer with the multitude ; and 
I talked hand-bill fashion with the demagogues ; 
and I shook hands with the mob, whom my heart 
abhorreth. 'T is true, for the first two days I 
maintained my coolness and indifference. The 
first day I merely hunted for whim, character, 
and absurdity, according to my usual custom ; the 
second day being rainy, I sat in the bar-room at 
the Seventh Ward, and read a volume of ' Gala- 
tea/ which I found on a shelf ; but before I had 
got through a hundred pages, I had three or four 
good Feds sprawling round me on the floor, and 
another with his eyes half shut, leaning on my 
shoulder in the most affectionate manner, and 
spelling a page of the book as if it had been an 
electioneering hand-bill. But the third day — 
ah ! then came the tug of war. My patriotism 
then blazed forth, and I determined to save my 
country ! Oh, my friend, I have been in such 
holes and corners ; such filthy nooks and filthy 
corners ; sweep offices and oyster cellars I ' I have 
sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can 
drink with any tinker in his own language during 
my life,' — faugh ! I shall not be able to bear the 
smell of small beer and tobacco for a month to 



SOCIETY AND '' SALMAGUNDI.'^ S5 

come. . . . Truly this saving one's country is a 
nauseous piece of business, and if patriotism is 
such a dirty virtue, — prythee, no more of it." 

He uiisuccessfiilly solicited some civil ap- 
pointment at Albany, a very modest solic- 
itation, which was never renewed, and. which 
did not last long, for he was no sooner there 
than he was *' disgusted by the servility 
and duplicity and rascality witnessed among 
the swarm of scrub politicians." There was 
a promising young artist at that time in 
Albany, and Irving wishes he were a man 
of wealth, to give him a helping hand ; a 
few acts of munificence of this kind b}^ rich 
nabobs, he breaks out, " would be more 
pleasing in the sight of Heaven, and more 
to the glory and advantage of their coun- 
try, than building a dozen shingle church 
steeples, or buying a thousand venal votes 
at an election." This was in the "good old 
times ! " 

Although a Federalist, and, as he de- 
scribed himself, "an admirer of General 
Hamilton, and a partisan with him in pol- 
itics," he accepted a retainer from Burr's 
friends in 1807, and attended his trial in 
Richmond, but more in the capacity of an 



56- ' WASHINGTON IRVING. 

observer of the scene than a lawyer. He 
did not share the prevalent opinion of Burr's 
treason, and regarded him as a man so fallen 
as to be shorn of the power to injure the 
country, one for whom he could feel nothing 
but compassion. That compassion, however, 
he received only from the ladies of the city, 
and the traits of female goodness manifested 
then sunk deep into Irving's heart. With- 
out pretending, he says, to decide on Burr's 
innocence or guilt, " his situation is such as 
should appeal eloquently to the feelings of 
every generous bosom. Sorry am I to say 
the reverse has been the fact : fallen, pro- 
scribed, pre-judged, the cup of bitterness 
has been administered to him with an un- 
sparing hand. It has almost been considered 
as culpable to evince toward him the least 
sympathy or support ; and many a hollow- 
hearted caitiff have I seen, who basked in 
the sunshine of his bounty while in power, 
who now skulked from his side, and even 
mingled among the most clamorous of his 
enemies. ... I bid him farewell with a 
heavy heart, and he expressed with peculiar 
warmth and feeling his sense of the interest 
I had taken in his fate. I never felt in a 



SOCIETY AND ''SALMAGUNDI.'' ' 57 

more melancholy mood than' when I rode 
from his solitary prison." This is a good 
illustration of Irving's tender-heartedness ; 
but considering Burr's whole character, it 
is altogether a womanish case of misplaced 
sympathy with the cool slayer of Alexander 
Hamilton.' 



CHAPTER V. 

THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 

Not long after the discontinuance of 
" Salmagundi," Irving in connection with 
his brother Peter projected the work that 
was to make him famous. At first nothing 
more was intended than a satire upon the 
" Picture of New York," by Dr. Samuel 
Mitchell, just then published. It was be- 
gun as a mere burlesque upon pedantry and 
erudition, and was well advanced, when 
Peter was called by his business to Europe, 
and its completion was fortunately left to 
Washington. In his mind the idea ex- 
panded into a different conception, j He 
condensed the mass of affected learning, 
which was their joint work, into five intro- 
ductory chapters, — subsequently he said it 
would have been improved if it had been 
reduced to one, and it seems to me it woiUd 
have been better if that one had been 
thrown away, — and finished " A History 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 59 

of New York," by Diedrich Knickerbocker, 
substantially as we now have it. This was 
in 1809, when Irving was twenty-six years 
old. 

But before this humorous creation was 
completed, the author endured the terrible 
bereavement which was to color all his life. 
He had formed a deep and tender passion 
for Matilda Hoffman, the second daughter 
of Jeremiah Ogden Hoffman, in whose fam- 
ily he had long been on a footing of the 
most perfect intimacy, and his ardent love 
was fully reciprocated. He was restlessly 
castinsc about for some assured means of 
livelihood which would enable him to marry, 
and perhaps his distrust of a literary career 
was connected with this desire, when after 
a short illness Miss Hoffman died, in the 
eighteenth j^ear of her age. Without being 
a dazzling beauty, she was lovely in person 
and mind, with most engaging manners, a 
refined sensibility, and a delicate and play- 
ful humor. The loss Avas a crushing blow to 
Irving, from the effects of which he never 
recovered, although time softened the bit- 
terness of his grief into a tender and sa- 
cred memory. He could never bear to hear 



60 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

lier name spoken even by his most inti- 
mate friends, or any allusion to her. Thirty 
years after her death, it happened one even- 
ing at the house of Mr. Hoffman, her father, 
that a granddaughter was playing for Mr. 
Irving, and in taking her music from the 
drawer, a faded piece of embroidery was 
brought forth. " Washington," said Mr. 
Hoffman, picking it up, " this is a piece of 
poor Matilda's workmanship." The effect 
was electric. He had been talking in the 
sprigbtliest mood before, but he sunk at 
once into utter silence, and in a few mo- 
ments got up and left the house. 

After his death, in a private repository 
of which he always kept the key, was found 
a lovely miniature, a braid of fair hair, and 
a slip of paper, on which was written in his 
own hand, " Matilda Hoffman ; " and with 
these treasures were several pages of a 
memorandum in ink long since faded. He 
kept through life her Bible and Prayer 
Book ; they were placed nightly under his 
pillow in the first days of anguish that fol- 
lowed her loss, and ever after they were the 
inseparable companions of all his wander- 
ing's. In this memorandum — which was 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 61 

written many years afterwards — we read 
tbe simple story of his love : — 

" We saw each other every day, and I became 
excessively attached to her. Her shyness wore 
off by degrees. The more I saw of her the more 
I had reason to admire her. Her mind seemed 
to unfold leaf by leaf, and every time to discover 
new sweetness. Nobody knew her so well as I, 
for she was generally timid and silent ; but I in a 
manner studied her excellence. Never did I 
meet with more intuitive rectitude of mind, more 
native delicacy, more exquisite propriety in word, 
thought, and action, than in this young creature. 
I am not exaggerating ; what I say was acknowl- 
edged by all who knew her. Her brilliant little 
sister used to say that people began by admiring 
her, but ended by loving Matilda. For my part, 
I idolized her. I felt at times rebuked by her 
superior delicacy and purity, and as if I was a 
coarse, unworthy being in comparison." 

At this time Irving was much perplexed 
about his career. He had " a fatal propen- 
sity to belles-lettres ; " his repugnance to the 
law was such that his mind would not take 
hold of the study ; he anticipated nothing 
from legal pursuits or political employ- 
ment ; he was secretly writing the humor- 



62 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ous historj^, but was altogether in a low- 
spirited and disheartened state. I quote 
again from the memorandum : — 

" In the mean time I saw Matilda every day, 
and that helped to distract me. In the midst of 
this struggle and anxiety she was taken ill with 
a cold. Nothing was thought of it at first ; but 
she grew rapidly worse, and fell into a consump- 
tion. I cannot tell you what I suffered. The 
ills that I have undergone in this life have been 
dealt out to me drop by drop, and I have tasted 
all their bitterness. I saw her fade rapidly 
away ; beautiful, and more beautiful, and more 
angelical to the last. I was often by her bed- 
side ; and in her wandering state of mind she 
would talk to me with a sweet, natural, and af- 
fecting eloquence, that was overpowering. I saw 
more of the beauty of her mind in that delirious 
state than I had ever known before. Her mal- 
ady was rapid in its career, and hurried her off 
in two months. Her dying struggles were pain- 
ful and protracted. For three days and nights 
I did not leave the house, and scarcely slept. I 
was by her when she died ; all the family were 
assembled round her, some praying, others weep- 
ing, for she was adored by them all. I was the 
last one she looked upon. I have told you as 
briefly as I could what, if I were to tell with all 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 63 

the incidents and feelings that accompanied it, 
would fill volumes. She was but about seven- 
teen years old when she died. 

" I cannot tell you what a horrid state of mind 
I was in for a long time. I seemed to care for 
nothing ; the world was a blank to me. I aban- 
doned all thoughts of the law. I went into the 
country, but could not bear solitude, yet could 
not endure society. There was a dismal horror 
continually in my mind, that made me fear to be 
alone. I had often to get up in the night, and 
seek the bedroom of my brother, as if the having 
a human being by me would relieve me from the 
frightful gloom of my own thoughts. 

" Months elapsed before my mind would re- 
sume any tone ; but the despondency I had suf- 
fered for a long time in the course of this 
attachment, and the anguish that attended its 
catastrophe, seemed to give a turn to my whole 
character, and throw some clouds into my dis- 
position, which have ever since hung about it. 
When I became more calm and collected, I ap- 
plied myself, by way of occupation, to the finish- 
ing of my work. I brought it to a close, as well 
as I could, and published it; but the time and 
circumstances in which it was produced rendered 
me always unable to look upon it with satisfac- 
tion. Still it took with the public, and gave me 
celebrity, as an original work was something re- 



64 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

markable and uncommon in America. I was no- 
ticed, caressed, and, for a time, elevated by the 
popularity I had gained. I found myself uncom- 
fortable in my feelings in New York, and trav- 
eled about a little. Wherever I went I was 
overwhelmed with attentions ; I was full of 
youth and animation, far different from the being 
I now am, and I was quite flushed with this early 
taste of public favor. Still, however, the career 
of gayety and notoriety soon palled on me. I 
seemed to drift about without aim or object, at 
the mercy of every breeze ; my heart wanted 
anchorage. I was naturally susceptible, and tried 
to form other attachments, but my heart would 
not hold on ; it would continually recur to what 
it had lost ; and whenever there was a pause in 
the hurry of novelty and excitement, I would 
sink into dismal dejection. For years I could 
not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret ; I 
could not even mention her name ; but her image 
was continually before me, and I dreamt of her 
incessantly." 

This memorandum, it subsequently ap- 
peared, was a letter, or a transcript of it, 
addressed to a married lady, Mrs. Foster, in 
which the story of his early love was re- 
lated, in reply to her question why he had 
never married. It was in the year 1823, 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 65 

the year after the publication of " Brace- 
bridge Hall," while he sojourned in Dres- 
den, that he became intimate with an Eng- 
lish family residing there, named Foster, 
and conceived for the daughter. Miss Emily 
Foster, a warm friendship and perhaps a 
deep attachment. The letter itself, which 
for the first time broke the guarded seclu- 
sion of Irving's heart, is evidence of the 
tender confidence that existed between him 
and this family. That this intimacy would 
have resulted in marriage, or an offer of 
marriage, if the lady's affections had not 
been preoccupied, the Fosters seem to have 
believed. In an unauthorized addition to 
the '-'• Life and Letters," inserted in the 
English edition without the knowledge of 
the American editor, with some such head- 
ings as, " History of his First Love brought 
to us, and returned," and " Irving's Second 
Attachment," the Fosters tell the interest- 
ing story of Irving's life in Dresden, and 
give many of his letters, and an account 
of his intimacy with the family. From this 
account I quote : — 

" Soou after this, Mr. Irving, who had again 
for long felt * the tenderest interest warm his 
5 



6Q WASHINGTON IRVING. 

bosom, and finally enthrall his whole soul,' made 
one vigorous and valiant effort to free himself 
from a hopeless and consuming attachment. My 
mother counseled him, I believe, for the best, 
and he left Dresden on an expedition of several 
weeks into a country he had long wished to see, 
though, in the main, it disappointed him ; and 
he started with young Colbourne (son of Gen- 
eral Colbourne) as his companion. Some of his 
letters on this journey are before the public ; 
and in the agitation and eagerness he there de- 
scribed, on receiving and opening letters from 
us, and the tenderness in his replies, — the long- 
ing to be once more in the little Pavilion, to 
which we had moved in the beginning of the 
summer, — the letters (though carefully guarded 
by the delicacy of her who intrusted them to the 
editor, and alone retained among many more 
calculated to lay bare his true feelings), even 
fragmentary as they are, point out the truth. 

" Here is the key to the journey to Silesia, 
the return to Dresden, and, finally, to the jour- 
ney from Dresden to Rotterdam in our company, 
first planned so as to part at Cassel, where Mr. 
Irving had intended to leave us and go down the 
Rhine, but subsequently could not find in his 
heart to part. Hence, after a night of pale and 
speechless melancholy, the gay, animated, happy 
countenance with which he sprang to our coach- 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 67 

box to take his old seat on it, and accompany us 
to Rotterdam. There even could he not part, 
but joined us in the steamboat ; and, after bear- 
ing us company as far as a boat could follow us, 
at last tore himself away, to bury himself in 
Paris, and try to work. . . . 

" It was fortunate, perhaps, that this affection 
was returned by the warmest friendship only, 
since it was destined that the accomplishment 
of his wishes was impossible, for many obstacles 
which lay in his way ; and it is with pleasure I 
can truly say that in time he schooled himself to 
view, also with friendship only, one who for 
some time past has been the wife of another." 

Upon the delicacy of this revelation the 
biographer does not comment, but he says 
that the idea that Irving thought of mar- 
riage at that time is utterly disproved by 
the following passage from the very manu- 
script which he submitted to Mrs. Fos- 
ter: — 

" You wonder why I am not married. I have 
shown you why I was not long since. When I 
had sufficiently recovered from that loss, I be- 
came involved in ruin. It was not for a man 
broken down in the world, to drag down any 
woman to his paltry circumstances. I was too 
proud to tolerate the idea of ever mendmg my 



68 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

circumstances by matrimony. My time has now 
gone by ; and I have growing claims upon my 
thoughts and upon my means, slender and pre- 
carious as they are. I feel as if I already had a 
family to think and provide for." 

Upon the question of attachment and de- 
pression, Mr. Pierre Irving says : — 

" While the editor does not question Mr. Ir- 
ving's great enjoyment of his intercourse with 
the Fosters, or his deep regret at parting from 
them, he is too familiar with his occasional fits 
of depression to have drawn from their recur- 
rence on his return to Paris any such inference 
as that to which the lady alludes. Indeed, his 
* memorandum book ' and letters show him to 
have had, at this time, sources of anxiety of 
quite a different nature. The allusion to his 
having ' to put once more to sea ' evidently 
refers to his anxiety on returning to his liter- 
ary pursuits, after a season of entire idleness." 

It is not for ns to question the judgment 
of the biographer, with his full knowledge 
of the circumstances and his long intimacy 
with his uncle ; yet it is evident that Irving 
was seriously impressed at Dresden, and 
that he was very much unsettled until he 
drove away the impression by hard work 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 69 

with his pen ; and it would be nothing new 
in human nature and experience if he had 
for a time yielded to the attractions of love- 
liness and a most congenial companionship, 
and had returned again to an exclusive 
devotion to the image of the early loved 
and lost. 

That Irving intended never to marry is 
an inference I cannot draw either from his 
fondness for the society of women, from his 
interest in the matrimonial projects of his 
friends and the gossip which has feminine 
attractions for its food, or from his letters 
to those who had his confidence. In a letter 
written from Birmingham, England, March 
15, 1816, to his dear friend Henry Bre- 
voort, who was permitted more than per- 
haps any other person to see his secret 
heart, he alludes, with gratification, to the 
report of the engagement of James Paul- 
ding, and then says : — 

" It is what we must all come to at last. I see 
you are hankering after it, and I confess I have 
done so for a long time past. We are, however, 
past that period [Irving was thirty-two] when a 
man marries suddenly and inconsiderately. We 
may be longer making a choice, and consulting 



70 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the convenience and concurrence of easy circum- 
stances, but we shall both come to it sooner or 
later. I therefore recommend you to marry 
without delay. You have sufficient means, con- 
nected with your knowledge and habits of busi- 
ness, to support a genteel establishment, and I 
am certain that as soon as you are married you 
will experience a change in your ideas. All 
those vagabond, roving propensities will cease. 
They are the offspring of idleness of mind and 
a want of something to fix the feelings. You 
are like a bark without an anchor, that drifts 
about at the mercy of every vagrant breeze or 
trifling eddy. Get a wife, and she '11 anchor you. 
But don't marry a fool because she has a pretty 
face, and don't seek after a great belle. Get 

such a girl as Mary , or get her if you can ; 

though I am afraid she has still an unlucky kind- 
ness for poor , which will stand in the way 

of her fortunes. I wish to God they were rich, 
and married, and happy ! " 

The business reverses which befell the 
Irving brothers, and which drove Washing- 
ton to the toil of the pen, and cast upon him 
heavy family responsibilities, defeated his 
plans of domestic happiness in marriage. 
It was in this same year, 1816, when the 
fortunes of the firm were daily becoming 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 71 

more dismal, that lie wrote to Brevoort, 
upon the report that the latter was likely 
to remain a bachelor : " We are all selfish 
beings. Fortune by her tardy favors and 
capricious freaks seems to discourage all my 
matrimonial resolves, and if I am doomed to 
live an old bachelor, I am anxioup to have 
good company. I cannot bear that all my 
old companions should launch away into the 
married state, and leave me alone to tread 
this desolate and sterile shore." And, in 
view of a possible life of scant fortune, he 
exclaims : " Thank Heaven, I was brought 
up in simple and inexpensive habits, and I 
have satisfied myself that, if need be, I 
can resume them without repining or incon- 
venience. Though I am willing, therefore, 
that Fortune should shower her blessings 
upon me, and think I can enjoy them as 
well as most men, yet I shall not make my- 
self unhappy if she chooses to be scanty, 
and shall take the position allotted me with 
a cheerful and contented mind." 

When Irving passed the winter of 1823 
in the charming society of the Fosters at 
Dresden, the success of the " Sketch-Book " 
and " Bracebridge Hall " had given him as- 



72 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

surance of his ability to live comfortably by 
the use of his pen. 

To resume. ^The preliminary announce- 
ment of the History was a humorous and 
skillful piece of advertising. Notices ap- 
peared in the newspapers of the disappear- 
ance from his lodging of " a small, elderly 
gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and 
cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker." 
Paragraphs from week to week, purporting 
to be the result of inquiry, elicited the facts 
that such an old gentleman had been seen 
traveling north in the Albany stage ; that 
his name was Diedrich Knickerbocker ; that 
he went away owing his landlord ; and that 
he left behind a very curious kind of a writ- 
ten book, which would be sold to pay his bills 
if he did not return. So skillfully was this 
managed that one of the city oflGicials was on 
tbe point of offering a reward for the discov- 
ery of the missing Diedrich. This little man 
in knee-breeches and cocked hat was the 
germ of the whole " Knickerbocker legend," 
a fantastic creation, which in a manner took 
the place of history, and stamped upon the 
commercial metropolis of the New World 
the indelible Knickerbocker name and char- 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 73 

acter ; and even now in the city it is an un- 
defined patent of nobility to trace descent 
from '•'- an old Knickerbocker family." 

The volume, which was first printed in 
Philadelphia, was put forth as a grave his- 
tory of the manners and government under 
the Dutch rulers, and so far was the covert 
humor carried that it was dedicated to the 
New York Historical Society. Its success 
was far beyond Irving's expectation. It 
met with almost universal acclaim. It is 
true that some of the old Dutch inhabitants 
who sat down to its perusal, expecting to 
read a veritable account of the exploits of 
their ancestors, were puzzled by the indi- 
rection of its commendation ; and several 
excellent old ladies of New York and Al- 
bany were in blazing indignation at the 
ridicule put upon the old Dutch people, 
and minded to ostracize the irreverent au- 
thor from all social recognition. As late 
as 1818, in an address before the Historical 
Society, Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, Irving's 
friend, showed the deep irritation the book 
had caused, by severe strictures on it as a 
" coarse caricature." But. the author's win- 
ning ways soon dissipated the social cloud, 



74 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and even the Dutch critics were erelong 
disarmed by the absence of all malice in the 
gigantic humor of the composition. One 
of the first foreigners to recognize the power 
and humor of the book was Walter Scott. 
"I have never," he wrote, "read anything 
so closely resembling the style of Dean 
Swift as the annals of Diedrich Knicker- 
bocker. I have been employed these few 
evenings in reading them aloud to Mrs. S. 
and two ladies who are our guests, and our 
sides have been absolutely sore with laugh- 
ing. I think, too, there are passages which 
indicate that the author possesses power of 
a different kind, and has some touches which 
remind me of Sterne." 

The book is indeed an original creation, 
and one of the few masterpieces of humor. 
In spontaneity, freshness, breadth of con- 
ception, and joyous vigor, it belongs to the 
spring-time of literature. It has entered 
into the popular mind as no other American 
book ever has, and it may be said to have 
created a social realm which, with all its 
whimsical conceit, has almost historical so- 
lidity. The Knickerbocker pantheon is al- 
most as real as that of Olympus. The in- 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 75 

troductory chapters are of that elephantine 
facetiousness which pleased our great-grand- 
fathers, but which is exceedingly tedious to 
modern taste ; and the humor of the book 
occasionally has a breadth that is indelicate 
to our apprehension, though it perhaps did 
not shock our great-grandmothers. But, 
notwithstanding these blemishes, I think 
the work has more enduring qualities than 
even the generation which it first delighted 
gave it credit for. The world, however, it 
must be owned, has scarcely yet the cour- 
age of its humor, and dullness still thinks 
it necessary to apologize for anything amus- 
ing. There is little doubt that Irving him- 
self supposed that his serious work was of 
more consequence to the world. 

It seems strange that after this success 
Irving should have hesitated to adopt liter- 
ature as his profession. But for two years, 
and with leisure, he did nothing. He had 
again some hope of political employment in 
a small way ; and at length he entered into 
a mercantile partnership with his brothers, 
which was to involve little work for him, 
and a share of the profits that should assure 
bis support, and leave him free to follow 



76 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

his fitful literary inclinations. Yet he seems 
to have been mainly intent upon society and 
the amusements of the passing hour, and, 
without the spur of necessity to his literary 
capacity, he yielded to the temptations of 
indolence, and settled into the unpromising 
position of a " man about town." Occa- 
sionally, the business of his firm and that of 
other importing merchants being imperiled 
by some threatened action of Congress, Ir- 
ving was sent to Washington to look after 
their interests. The leisurely progress he 
always made to the capital through the 
seductive society of Philadelphia and Bal- 
timore did not promise much business dis- 
patch. At the seat of government he was 
certain to be involved in a whirl of gayety. 
His letters from Washington are more oc- 
cupied with the odd characters he met than 
with the measures of legislation. These 
visits greatly extended his acquaintance 
with the leading men of the country; his 
political leanings did not prevent an inti- 
macy with the President's family, and Mrs. 
Madison and he were sworn friends. 

It was of the evening of his first arrival 
in Washington that he writes ; " I emerged 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 77 

from dirt and darkness into tlae blazing 
splendor of Mrs. Madison's drawing-room. 
Here I was most graciously received ; found 
a crowded collection of great and little men, 
of ugly old women and beautiful young 
ones, and in ten minutes was hand and 
glove with half the people in the assem- 
blage. Mrs. Madison is a fine, portly, 
buxom dame, who has a smile and a pleas- 
ant word for everybody. Her sisters, Mrs. 
Cutts and Mrs. Washington, are like two 
merry wives of Windsor; but as to Jemmy 
Madison, — oh, poor Jemmy ! — he is but a 
withered little apple-john." 

Odd characters congregated then in 
Washington as now. One honest fellow, 
who, by faithful fagging at the heels of 
Congress, had obtained a profitable post 
under government, shook Irving heartily 
by the hand, and professed himself always 
happy to see anybody that came from New 
York ; " somehow or another, it was nat- 
teral to him," being the place where he was 
first born. Another fellow-townsman was 
"endeavoring to obtain a deposit in the 
Mechanics' Bank, in case the United States 
Bank does not obtain a charter. He is as 



78 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

deep as usual ; shakes his head and winks 
through his spectacles at everybody he 
meets. He swore to me the other day that 
he had not told anybody what his opinion 
was, — whether the bank ought to have a 
charter or not. Nobody in Washington 
knew what his opinion was — not one — 
nobody ; he defied any one to say what it 
was — ' anybody — damn the one ! No, sir, 
nobody knows ; ' and if he had added nobody 

cares, I believe honest would have 

been exactly in the right. Then there 's 
his brother George : ' Damn that fellow, — 
knows eight or nine languages ; yes, sir, 
nine languages, — Arabic, Spanish, Greek, 
Ital — And there 's his wife, now, — she 
and Mrs. Madison are always together. Mrs. 
Madison has taken a great fancy to her lit- 
tle daughter. Only think, sir, that child is 
only six years old, and talks the Italian like 

a book, by ; little devil learnt it from 

an Italian servant, — damned clever fellow ; 
lived with my brother George ten years. 
George says he would not part with him 
for all Tripoli,' " etc. 

It was always difi&cult for Irving, in those 
days, to escape from the genial blandish- 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 79 

ments of Baltimore and Philadelphia. 
Writing to Brevoort from Philadelphia, 
March 16, 1811, he says : " The people of 
Baltimore are exceedingly social and hos- 
pitable to strangers, and I saw that if I once 
let myself get into the stream I should not 
be able to get out under a fortnight at 
least ; so, being resolved to push home as 
expeditiously as was honorably possible, I 
resisted the world, the flesh, and the devil at 
Baltimore ; and after three days' and nights' 
stout carousal, and a fourth's sickness, sor- 
row, and repentance, I hurried off from that 
sensual city." 

Jarvis, the artist, was at that time the 
eccentric and elegant lion of society in Bal- 
timore. " Jack Randolph " had recently 
sat to him for his portrait. " By the bye 
[the letter continues] that little * hydra 
and chimera dire,' Jarvis, is in prodigious 
circulation at Baltimore. The gentlemen 
have all voted him a rare wag and most 
brilliant wit ; and the ladies pronounce him 
one of the queerest, ugliest, most agreeable 
little creatures in the world. The conse- 
quence is there is not a ball, tea-party, con- 
cert, supper, or other private regale but that 



80 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Jarvis is the most conspicuous personage; 
and as to a dinner, they can no more do with- 
out him than they could without Friar John 
at the roystering revels of the renowned Pan- 
tagruel." Irving gives one of his hon mots 
which was industriously repeated at all the 
dinner tables, a profane sally, which seemed 
to tickle the Baltimoreans exceedingly. Be- 
ing very much importuned to go to church, 
he resolutely refused, observing that it was 
the same thing whether he went or stayed 
at home. "If I don't go," said he, *'the 

minister says I '11 be d d, and I '11 be 

d d if I do go." 

This same letter contains a pretty pict- 
ure, and the expression of Irving's habit- 
ual kindly regard for his fellow-men : — 

" I was out visiting with Ann yesterday, and 
met that little assemblage of smiles and fascina- 
tions, Mary Jackson. She was bounding with 
youth, health, and innocence, and good humor. 
She had a pretty straw hat, tied under her chin 
with a pink ribbon, and looked like some little 
woodland nymph, just turned out by spring and 
fine weather. God bless her light heart, and 
grant it may never know care or sorrow ! It 's 
enough to cure spleen and melancholy only to 
look at her. 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 81 

" Your familiar pictures of home made me ex- 
tremely desirous again to be there. ... I shall 
once more return to sober life, satisfied with hav- 
ing secured three months of sunshine in this val- 
ley of shadows and darkness. In this space of 
time I have seen considerable of the world, but I 
am sadly afraid I have not grown wiser thereby, 
inasmuch as it has generally been asserted by the 
sages of every age that wisdom consists in a 
knowledge of the wickedness of mankind, and 
the wiser a man grows the more discontented he 
becomes with those around him. Whereas, woe 
is me, I return in infinitely better humor with 
the world than I ever was before, and with a 
most melancholy good opinion and good will for 
the great mass of my fellow-creatures ! " 

Free intercourse with men of all parties, 
he thought, tends to divest a man's mind of 
party bigotry. 

" One day [he writes] I am dining with a knot 
of honest, furious Federalists, who are damning 
all their opponents as a set of consummate scoun- 
drels, panders of Bonaparte, etc. The next day 
I dine, perhaps, with some of the very men I 
have heard thus anathematized, and find them 
equally honest, warm, and indignant ; and if I 
take their word for it, I had been dining the day 



82 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

bisfore with some of the greatest knaves in the 
nation, men absolutely paid and suborned by the 
British government." 

His friends at this time attempted to get 
him appointed secretary of legation to the 
French mission, under Joel Barlow, then 
minister, but he made no effort to secure 
the place. Perhaps he was deterred by the 
knowledge that the author of " The Colum- 
biad " suspected him, though unjustly, of 
some strictures on his great epic. He had 
in mind a book of travel in his own coun- 
try, in which he should sketch manners and 
characters ; but nothing came of it. The 
peril to trade involved in the War of 1812 
gave him some forebodings, and aroused him 
to exertion. He accepted the editorship of 
a periodical called " Select Reviews," after- 
wards changed to the '' Analectic Maga- 
zine," for which he wrote sketches, some of 
which were afterwards put into the '' Sketch- 
Book," and several reviews and naval biog- 
raphies. A brief biography of Thomas 
Campbell was also written about this time, 
as introductory to an edition of " Gertrude 
of Wyoming." But the slight editorial care 
required by the magazine was irksome to a 



TEE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD, 83 

man who had an unconquerable repugnance 
to all periodical labor. 

In 1813 Francis Jeffrey made a visit to 
the United States. Henry Brevoort, who 
was then in London, wrote an anxious let- 
ter to Irving to impress him with the neces- 
sity of making much of Mr. Jeffrey. " It 
is essential," he says, "that Jeffrey may 
imbibe a jnst estimate of the United States 
and its inhabitants; he goes out strongly 
biased in our favor, and the influence of his 
good opinion upon his return to this coun- 
try will go far to efface the calumnies and 
the absurdities that have been laid to our 
charge by ignorant travelers. Persuade him 
to visit Washington, and by all means to 
see the Falls of Niagara." The impression 
seems to have prevailed that if Englishmen 
could be made to take a just view of the 
Falls of Niagara the misunderstandings be- 
tween the two countries would be reduced. 
Peter Irving, who was then in Edinburgh, 
was impressed with the brilliant talent of 
the editor of the " Review," disguised as it 
was by affectation, but he said he " would 
not give the Minstrel for a wilderness of 
Jeffreys." 



84 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

The years from 1811 to 1815, when he 
went abroad for the second time, were passed 
by Irving in a sort of humble waiting on 
Providence. His letters to Brevoort during 
this period are full of the ennui of irresolute 
youth. He idled away weeks and months 
in indolent enjoyment in the country; he 
indulged his passion for the theatre when 
opportunity offered ; and he began to be 
weary of a society which offered little stim- 
ulus to his mind. His was the temperament 
of the artist, and America at that time had 
little to evoke or to satisfy the artistic feel- 
ing. There were few pictures and no gal- 
leries ; there was no music, except the ama- 
teur torture of strings which led the coun- 
try dance, or the martial inflammation of 
fife and drum, or the sentimental dawdling 
here and there over the ancient harpsi- 
chord, with the songs of love, and the broad 
or pathetic staves and choruses of the con- 
vivial table ; and there was no literary at- 
mosphere. 

After three months of indolent enjoyment 
in the winter and spring of 1811, Irving is 
complaining to Brevoort in June of the en- 
ervation of his social life : " I do want most 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 85 

deplorably to apply my mind to something 
tliat will arouse and animate it ; for at pres- 
ent it is very indolent and relaxed, and I 
find it very diflB.cult to shake off the leth- 
argy that enthralls it. This makes me rest- 
less and dissatisfied with myself, and I am 
convinced I shall not feel comfortable and 
contented until my mind is fully employed. 
Pleasure is but a transient stimulus, and 
leaves the mind more enfeebled than before. 
Give me rugged toils, fierce disputation, 
wrangling controversy, harassing research, — 
give me anything that calls forth the ener- 
gies of the mind ; but for Heaven's sake shield 
me from those calms, those tranquil slum- 
berings, those enervating triflings, those siren 
blandishments, that I have for some time 
indulged in, which lull the mind into com- 
plete inaction, which benumb its powers, 
and cost it such painful and humihating 
struggles to regain its activity and independ- 
ence ! " 

Irving at this time of life seemed always 
waiting by the pool for some angel to come 
and trouble the waters. To his correspond- 
ent, who was in the wilds of Michilimack- 
inac, he continues to lament his morbid in- 



86 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ability. The business in which his thriving 
brothers were engaged was the importation 
and sale of hardware and cutlery, and that 
spring his services were required at the 
" store.'' "By all the martyrs of Grub 
Street [he exclaims], I 'd sooner live in a 
garret, and starve into the bargain, than fol- 
low so sordid, dusty, and soul-killing a way 
of life, though certain it would make me as 
rich as old Croesus, or John Jacob Astor 
himself ! " The sparkle of society was no 
more agreeable to him than the rattle of 
cutlery. " I have scarcely [he writes] seen 
anything of the s since your depart- 
ure ; business and an amazing want of in- 
clination have kept me from their threshold. 
Jim, that sly poacher, however, prowls 
about there, and vitrifies his heart by the 
furnace of their charms. I accompanied 
him there on Sunday evening last, and found 

the Lads and Miss Knox with them. S 

was in great spirits, and played the sparkler 
with such great success as to silence the 
whole of us excepting Jim, who was the 
agreeable rattle of the evening. God defend 
me from such vivacity as hers, in future, — 
such smart speeches without meaning, such 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 87 

bubble and squeak nonsense ! I 'cl as lieve 
stand by a frying-pan for an hour and listen 
to the cooking of apple fritters. After two 
hours' dead silence and suffering on my part 
I made out to drag him off, and did not stop 
running until I was a mile from the house." 
Irving gives his correspondent graphic pict- 
ures of the social warfare in which he was 
engaged, the " host of rascally little tea- 
parties " in which he was entangled; and 
some of his portraits of the " divinities," the 
"blossoms," and the beauties of that day 
would make the subjects of them flutter w ith 
surprise in the church-yards where they lie. 
The writer was sated with the " tedious 
commonplace of fashionable society," and 
languishing to return to his books and his 
pen. 

In March, 1812, in the shadow of the war 
and the depression of business, Irving was 
getting out a new edition of the " Knicker- 
bocker," which Inskeep vs^as to publish, 
agreeing to pay |1,200 at six months for 
an edition of fifteen hundred. The modern 
publisher had not then arisen and acquired j/ 
a proprietary right in the brains of the 
country, and the author made his bargains 



88 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

like an independent being who owned him- 
self. 

living's letters of this period are full of 
the gossip of the town and the matrimonial 
fate of his acquaintances. The fascinating 
Mary Fairlie is at length married to Cooper, 
the tragedian, with the opposition of her 
parents, after a dismal courtship and a 
cloudy prospect of happiness. " Goodhue 
is engaged to Miss Clarkson, the sister to 
the pretty one. The engagement suddenly 
took place as they walked from church on 
Christmas Day, and report says the action 
was shorter than any of our naval victories, 
for the lady struck on the first broadside." 
The war colored all social life and con- 
versation. " This war [the letter is to Bre- 
voort, who is in Europe] has completely 
changed the face of things here. You would 
scarcely recognize our old peaceful city. 
Nothing is talked of but armies, navies, bat- 
tles, etc." The same phenomenon was wit- 
nessed then that was observed in the war 
for the Union : " Men who had loitered 
about, the hangers-on and encumbrances of 
society, have all at once risen to importance, 
and been the only useful men of the day." 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 89 

The exploits of our young navy kept up the 
spirits of the country. There was great re- 
joicing when the captured frigate Macedo- 
nian was brought into New York, and was 
visited by the curious as she lay wind-bound 
above Hell Gate. "A superb dinner was 
given to the naval heroes, at which all the 
great eaters and drinkers of the city were 
present. It was the noblest entertainment 
of the kind I ever witnessed. On New 
Year's Eve a grand ball was likewise given, 
where there was a vast display of great and 
little people. The Livingstons were there 
in all their glory. Little Rule Britannia 
made a gallant appearance at the head of a 
train of beauties, among whom were the di- 
vine H , who looked very inviting, and 

the little Taylor, who looked still more so. 
Britannia was gorgeously dressed in a queer 
kind of hat of stiff purple and silver stuff, 
that had marvelously the appearance of cop- 
per, and made us suppose that she had pro- 
cured the real Mambrino helmet. Her dress 
was trimmed with what we simply mistook 
for scalps, and supposed it was in honor of 
the nation ; but we blushed at our ignorance 
on discovering that it was a gorgeous trim- 



90 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ming of marten tips. Would that some em- 
inent furrier had been there to wonder and 
admire ! " 

With a little business and a good deal of 
loitering, waiting upon the whim of his pen, 
Irving passed the weary months of the war. 
As late as August, 1814, he is still giving 
Brevoort, who has returned, and is at Rock- 
away Beach, the light gossip of the town. 
It was reported that Brevoort and Dennis 
had kept a journal of their foreign travel, 
" which is so exquisitely humorous that Mrs. 
Cooper, on only looking at the first word, fell 
into a fit of laughing that lasted half an 
hour." Irving is glad that he cannot find 
Brevoort's flute, which the latter requested 
should be sent to him : " I do not think it 
would be an innocent amusement for you, 
as no one has a right to entertain himself 
at the expense of others." In such dallying 
and badinage the months went on, affairs 
every day becoming more serious. Append- 
ed to a letter of September 9, 1814, is a list 
of twenty well-known mercantile houses 
that had failed within the preceding three 
weeks. Irving himself, shortly after this, 
enlisted in the war, and his letters there- 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 91 

after breathe patriotic indignation at the in- 
sulting proposals of the British and their 
rumored attack on New York, and all his 
similes, even those having love for their 
subject, are martial and bellicose. Item : 
" The gallant Sam has fairly changed front, 
and, instead of lajdng siege to Douglas cas- 
tle, has charged sword in hand, and carried 
little Cooper's entr'enchments." 

As a Federalist and an admirer of Eng- 
land, Irving had deplored the war, but his 
sympathies were not doubtful after it be- 
gan, and the burning of the national Capitol 
by General Ross aroused him to an active 
participation in the struggle. He was de- 
scending the Hudson in a steamboat when 
the tidings first reached him. It was night, 
and the passengers had gone into the cabin, 
when a man came on board with the news, 
and in the darkness related the particulars : 
the burning of the President's house and 
government offices, and the destruction of 
the Capitol, with the library and public 
archives. In the momentary silence that 
followed, somebody raised his voice, and in 
a tone of complacent derision '* wondered 
what Jimmy Madison would say now." 



92 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

" Sir," cried Mr. Irving, in a burst of in- 
dignation that overcame bis babitual sby- 
ness, " do you seize upon sucb a disaster 
only for a sneer ? Let me tell you, sir, it 
is not now a question about Jimmy Madi- 
son or Jhnmy Armstrong. The pride and 
honor of the nation are wounded ; the coun- 
try is insulted and disgraced by this bar- 
barous success, and every loyal citizen would 
feel the ignominy and be earnest to avenge 
it." There was an outburst of applause, 
and the sneerer was silenced. " I could not 
see the fellow," said Mr. Irving, in relating 
the anecdote, " but I let fly at him in the 
dark." 

The next day he offered his services to 
Governor Tompkins, and was made the 
governor's aid and military secretary, with 
the right to be addressed as Col. Washing- 
ton Irving. He served only four months 
in this capacity, when Governor Tompkins 
was called to the session of the legislature 
at Albany. Irving intended to go to Wash- 
ington and apply for a commission in the 
regular army, but he was detained at Phil- 
adelphia by the affairs of his magazine, until 
news came in February, 1815, of the close 



THE KNICKERBOCKER PERIOD. 93 

of the war. In May of that year he era- 
barked for England to visit his brother, in- 
tending only a short sojourn. He remained 
abroad seventeen years. 



CHAPTER VI. 

LIFE IN EUEOPE: LITERARY ACTIVITY. 

When Irving sailed from New York, it 
was with lively anticipations of witnessing 
the stirring events to follow the return of 
Bonaparte from Elba. When he reached 
Liverpool the curtain had fallen in Bona- 
parte's theatre. The first spectacle that 
met the traveler's eye was the mail coaches, 
darting through the streets, decked with 
laurel and bringing the news of Waterloo. 
As usual, Irving's sympathies were with 
the unfortunate. " I think," he says, writ- 
ing of the exile of St. Helena, ''the cabinet 
has acted with littleness toward him. In 
spite of all his misdeeds he is a noble fellow 
\_pace Madame de Remusat], and I am con- 
fident will eclipse, in the eyes of posterity, 
all the crowned wiseacres that have crushed 
him by their overwhelming confederacy. If 
anything could place the Prince Regent in 
a more ridiculous light, it is Bonaparte su- 



LIFE IN EUROPE. 95 

ing for his magnanimous protection. Every 
compliment paid to this bloated sensualist, 
this inflation of sack and sugar, turns to 
the keenest sarcasm." 

After staying a week with his brother 
Peter, who was recovering from an indis- 
position, Irving went to Birmingham, the 
residence of his brother-in-law, Henry Van 
Wart, who had married his youngest sister, 
Sarah; and from thence to Sydenham, to 
visit Campbell. The poet was not at home. 
To Mrs. Campbell Irving expressed his 
regret that her husband did not attempt 
something on a grand scale. 

" ' It is unfortunate for Campbell,' said she, 
* that he lives in the same age with Scott and 
Byron.' I asked why. ' Oh,' said she, ' they 
write so much and so rapidly. Mr. Campbell 
writes slowly, and it takes him some time to get 
under way ; and just as he has fairly begun out 
comes one of their poems, that sets the world 
agog, and quite daunts him, so that he throws by 
his pen in despair.' I pointed out the essential 
difference in their kinds of poetry, and the quali- 
ties which insured perpetuity to that of her hus- 
band. * You can't persuade Campbell of that,' 
said she. *He is apt to undervalue his own 



96 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

works, and to consider his own little lights put 
out, whenever they come blazing out with their 
great torches.' 

" I repeated the conversation to Scott some time 
afterward, and it drew forth a characteristic com- 
inent. * Pooh ! ' said he, good humoredly ; * ho.w 
can Campbell mistake the matter so much ? Po- 
etry goes by quality, not by bulk. My poems are 
mere cairngorms, wrought up, perhaps, with a cun- 
ning hand, and may pass well in the market as 
long as cairngorms are the fashion ; but they are 
mere Scotch pebbles, after all. Now, Tom Camp- 
bell's are real diamonds, and diamonds of the 
first water.' " 

Returning to Birmingham, Irving made ex- 
cursions to Kenilworth, Warwick, and Strat- 
ford -on -Avon, and a tour through Wales 
with James Renwick, a young American of 
great promise, who at the age of nineteen 
had for a time filled the chair of natural 
philosophy in Columbia College. He was 
a son of Mrs. Jane Renwick, a charming 
woman and a life-long friend of Irving, the 
daughter of the Rev. Andrew Jeffrey, of 
Lochmaben, Scotland, and famous in litera- 
ture as " The Blue-Eyed Lassie " of Burns. 
From another song, " When first I saw my 



LIFE IN EUROPE. 97 

Jeanie's Face," which does not appear in 
the poet's collected works, the biographer 
quotes : — 

" But, sair, I doubt some happier swain 
Has gained my Jeanie's favor ; 
If sae, may every bliss be hers, 
Tho' I can never have her. 

" But gang she east, or gang she west, 
'Twixt Nith and Tweed all over. 
While men have eyes, or ears, or taste, 
She '11 always find a lover." 

During Irving's protracted stay in Eng- 
land he did not by any means lose his in- 
terest in his beloved New York and the lit- 
tle society that was ahvays dear to him. He 
relied upon his friend Brevoort to give him 
the news of the town, and in return he 
wrote long letters,— longer and more elab- 
orate and formal than this generation has 
leisure to write or to read ; letters in which 
the writer laid himself out to be entertain- 
ing, and detailed his emotions and state of 
mind as faithfully as his travels and out- 
ward experiences. 

No sooner was our war with England 
over than our navy began to make a repu- 
tation for itself in the Mediterranean. In 



98 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

his letter of August, 1815, Irving dwells 
with pride on Decatur's triumph over the 
Algerine pirates. He had just received a 
letter from that " worthy little tar, Jack 
Nicholson," dated on board the Flambeau, 
off Algiers. In it Nicholson saj^s that '' they 
fell in with and captured the admiral's ship, 
and killed liim.^'' Upon which Irving re- 
marks : '*As this is all that Jack's brevity 
will allow him to say on the subject, I 
should be at a loss to know whether they 
killed the admiral before or after his capt- 
ure. The well-known humanity of our 
tars, however, induces me to the former 
conclusion." Nicholson, wlio has the honor 
of being alluded to in " The Croakers," was 
always a great favorite with Irving. His 
'^-^alhintry on shore was equal to his bravery 
at sea, but unfortunately his diffidence was 
greater than his gallantry; and while his 
susceptibility to female charms made him an 
easy and a frequent victim, he could never 
muster the courage to declare his passion. 
Upon one occasion, when he was desper- 
ately enamored of a lady whom he wished to 
marry, he got Irving to write for him a love- 
letter, containing an offer of his heart and 



LIFE IN EUROPE. 99 

hand. The enthralled but bashful sailor 
carried the letter in his pocket till it was 
worn out, without ever being able to sum- 
mon pluck enough to deliver it. 

While Irving was in Wales the Wig- 
gins family and Madame Bonaparte passed 
through Birmingham, on their way to Chel- 
tenham. Madame was still determined to 
assert her rights as a Bonaparte. Irving 
cannot help expressing sympathy for Wig- 
gins : '' The poor man has his hands full, 
with such a bevy of beautiful women under 
his charge, and all doubtless bent on pleas- 
ure and admiration." He hears, however, 
nothing further of her, except the newspa- 
pers mention her being at Cheltenham. 
"There are so many stars and comets 
thrown out of their orbits, and whirling 
about the world at present, that a little star 
like Madame Bonaparte attracts but slight 
attention, even though she draw after her 
so sparkling a tail as the Wiggins family." 
In another letter he exclaims ; " The world 
is surely topsy-turvy, and its inhabitants 
shaken out of place : emperors and kings, 
statesmen and philosophers, Bonaparte, Al- 
exander, Johnson, and the Wigginses, all 
strolling about the face of the earth." 



100 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

The business of the Irving brothers soon 
absorbed all Washington's time and atten- 
tion. Peter was an invalid, and the whole 
weight of the perplexing affairs of the fail- 
ing firm fell upon the one who detested 
business, and counted every hour lost that he 
gave to it. His letters for two years are bur- 
dened with harassments in uncongenial de- 
tails and unsuccessful struggles. Liverpool, 
where he was compelled to pass most of his 
time, had few attractions for him, and his 
low spirits did not permit him to avail him- 
self of such social advantages as were of- 
fered. It seems that our enterprising coun- 
trymen flocked abroad, on the conclusion of 
peace. " This place [writes Irving] swarms 
with Americans. You never saw a more 
motley race of beings. Some seem as if 
just from the woods, and yet stalk about 
the streets and public places with all the 
easy nonchalance that they would about 
their own villages. Nothing can surpass 
the dauntless independence of all form, cere- 
mony, fashion, or reputation of a downright, 
unsophisticated American. Since the war, 
too, particularly, our lads seem to think 
they are ' the salt of the earth ' and the le- 



LIFE IN EUROPE. 101 

gitimate lords of creation. It would de- 
light you to see some of them playing In- 
dian when surrounded by the wonders and 
improvements of the Old World. It is im- 
possible to match these fellows by anything 
this side the water. Let an Englishman 
talk of the battle of Waterloo, and they 
will immediately bring up New Orleans and 
Plattsburg. A thoroughbred, thoroughly 
appointed soldier is nothing to a Kentucky 
rifleman," etc., etc. In contrast to this 
sort of American was Charles King, who 
was then abroad : " Charles is exactly what 
an American should be abroad : frank, 
manly, and unaffected in his habits and 
manners, liberal and independent in his 
opinions, generous and unprejudiced in his 
sentiments towards other nations, but most 
loyally attached to his own." There was a 
provincial narrowness at that date and long 
after in America, which deprecated the 
open-minded patriotism of King and of Ir- 
ving as it did the clear-sighted loyalty of 
Fenimore Cooper. 

The most anxious time of Irving's life 
was the winter of 1815-16. The business 
worry increased. He was too jaded with 



102 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

the din of pounds, shillings, and pence to 
permit his pen to invent facts or to adorn 
realities. Nevertheless, he occasionally es- 
capes from the tread-mill. In December he 
is in London, and entranced with the acting 
of Miss O'Neil. He thinks that Brevoort, 
if he saw her, would infallibly fall in love 
with this " divine perfection of a woman." 
He writes : " She is, to my eyes, the most 
soul-subduing actress I ever saw ; I do not 
mean from her personal charms, which are 
great, but from the truth, force, and pathos 
of her acting. I have never been so com- 
pletely melted, moved, and overcome at a 
theatre as by her performances. . . . Kean, 
the prodigy, is to me insufferable. He is 
vulgar, full of trick, and a complete man- 
nerist. This is merely my opinion. He is 
cried up as a second Garrick, as a reformer 
of the stage, etc. It may be so. He may 
be right, and all the other actors wrong. 
This is certain : he is either very good or 
very bad. I think decidedly the latter; 
and I find no medium opinions concerning 
him. I am delighted with Young, who acts 
with great judgment, discrimination, and 
feeling. I think him much the best actor 



LIFE IN EUROPE. 103 

at present on the English stage. ... In cer- 
tain characters, such as may be classed with 
Macbeth, I do not think that Cooper has 
his equal in England. Young is the only 
actor I have seen who can compare with 
him." Later, Irving somewhat modified his 
opinion of Kean. He wrote to Brevoort : 
" Kean is, a strange compound of merits and 
defects. His excellence consists in sudden 
and brilliant touches, in vivid exhibitions 
of passion and emotion. I do not think him 
a discriminating actor, or critical either at 
understanding or delineating character ; but 
he produces effects which no other actor 
does." 

In the summer of 1816, on his way from 
Liverpool to visit his sister's family at Bir- 
mingham, Irving tarried for a few days at 
a country place near Shrewsbury on the 
border of Wales, and while there encoun- 
tered a character whose portrait is cleverly 
painted. It is interesting to compare this 
first sketch with the elaboration of it in 
the essay on The Angler in the " Sketch- 
Book." 

"In one of our morning strolls [he writes, 
July 15th] along the banks of the Aleen, a 



104 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

beautiful little jDastoral stream that rises among 
the Welsh mountains and throws itself into the 
Dee, we encountered a veteran angler of old 
Isaac Walton's school. He was an old Green- 
wich out-door pensioner, had lost one leg in the 
battle of Camperdown, had been in America in 
his youth, and indeed had been quite a rover, 
but for many years past had settled himself down 
in his native village, not far distant, where he 
lived very independently on his pension and some 
other small annual sums, amounting in all to 
about £40. His great hobby, and indeed the 
business of his life, was to angle. I found he 
had read Isaac Walton very attentively ; he 
seemed to have imbibed all his simplicity of 
heart, contentment of mind, and fluency of tongue. 
We kept company with him almost the whole 
day, wandering along the beautiful banks of the 
river, admiring the ease and elegant dexterity 
with which the old fellow managed his angle, 
throwing the fly with unerring certainty at a 
great distance and among overhanging bushes, 
and waving it gracefully in the air, to keep it 
from entangling, as he stumped with his staff and 
wooden leg from one bend of the river to an- 
other. He kept up a continual flow of cheerful 
and entertaining talk, and what I particularly 
liked him for was, that though we tried every 
way to entrap him into some abuse of America 



LIFE IN EUROPE. 105 

and its inhabitants, there was no getting him to 
utter an ill-natured word concerning us. His 
whole conversation and deportment illustrated 
old Isaac's maxims as to the benign influence of 
angling over the human heart. ... I ought to 
mention that he had two companions — one, a 
ragged, picturesque varlet, that had all the air 
of a veteran poacher, and I warrant would find 
any fish-pond in the neighborhood in the darkest 
night ; the other was a disciple of the old phi- 
losopher, studying the art under him, and was 
son and heir apparent to the landlady of the vil- 
lage tavern." 

A contrast to this pleasing picture is af- 
forded by some character sketches at the 
little watering-place of Buxton, which our 
kindly observer visited the same year. 

"At the hotel where we put up [he writes] 
we had a most singular and whimsical assem- 
blage of beings. I don't know whether you were 
ever at an English watering-place, but if you 
have not been, you have missed the best oppor- 
tunity of studying EngUsh oddities, both moral 
and physical. I no longer wonder at the English 
being such excellent caricaturists, they have such 
an inexhaustible number and variety of subjects 
to study from. The only care should be not to 
follow fact too closely, for I '11 swear I have met 



106 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

with characters and figures that would be con- 
demned as extravagant, if faithfully delineated 
by pen or pencil. At a watering-place like Bux- 
ton, where people really resort for health, you see 
the great tendency of the English to run into 
excrescences and bloat out into grotesque de- 
formities. As to noses, I say nothing of them, 
though we had every variety : some snubbed and 
turned up, with distended nostrils, like a dormer 
window on the roof of a house ; others convex 
and twisted like a buck-handled knife ; and others 
magnificently efflorescent, like a full-blown cauli- 
flower. But as to the persons that were attached 
to these noses, fancy any distortion, protuber- 
ance, and fungous embellishment that can be pro- 
duced in the human form by high and gross feed- 
ing, by the bloating oi3erations of malt liquors, 
and by the rheumy influence of a damp, foggy, 
vaporous climate. One old fellow was an excep- 
tion to this, for instead of acquiring that expan- 
sion and sponginess to which old people are prone 
in this country, from the long course of internal 
and external soakage they experience, he had 
grown dry and stiff in the process of years. The 
skin of his face had so shrunk away that he could 
not close eyes or mouth — the latter, therefore, 
stood on a perpetual ghastly grin, and the former 
on an incessant stare. He had but one service- 
able joint in his body, which was at the bottom 



LIFE IN EUROPE. 107 

of the backbone, and that creaked and grated 
whenever he bent. He could not raise his feet 
from the ground, but skated along the drawing- 
room carj)et whenever he wished to ring the bell. 
The only sign of moisture in his whole body was 
a pellucid drop that I occasionally noticed on the 
end of a long, dry nose. He used generally to 
shuffle about in company with a little fellow that 
was fat on one side and lean on the other. That 
is to say, he was warped on one side as if he had 
been scorched before the fire ; he had a wry neck, 
which made his head lean on one shoulder ; his 
hair was smugly powdered, and he had a round, 
smirking, smiling, apple face, with a bloom on it 
like that of a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. We 
had an old, fat general by the name of Trotter, 
who had, I suspect, been promoted to his high 
rank to get him out of the way of more able and 
active officers, being an instance that a man may 
occasionally rise in the world through absolute 
lack of merit. I could not help watching the 
movements of this redoubtable old Hero, who, I '11 
warrant, has been the champion and safeguard of 
half the garrison towns in England, and fancy- 
ing to myself how Bonaparte would have de- 
lighted in having such toast-and-butter generals 
to deal with. This old cad is doubtless a sample 
of those generals that flourished in the old mili- 
tary school, when armies would manoeuvre and 



108 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

watch each other for months ; now and then 
have a desperate skirmish, and, after marching 
and countermarching about the ' Low Countries ' 
through a glorious campaign, retire on the first 
pinch of cold weather into snug winter quarters 
in some fat Flemish town, and eat and drink 
and fiddle through the winter. Boney must have 
sadly disconcerted the comfortable system of 
these old warriors by the harrowing, restless, 
cut-and-slash mode of warfare that he introduced. 
He has put an end to all the old carte and tierce 
system in which the cavaliers of the old school 
fought so decorously, as it were with a small 
sword in one hand and a chapeau bras in the 
other. During his career there has been a sad 
laying on the shelf of old generals who could not 
keep up with the hurry, the fierceness and dash- 
ing of the new system ; and among the number 
I presume has been my worthy house-mate, old 
Trotter. The old gentleman, in spite of his 
warlike title, had a most pacific appearance. He 
was large and fat, with a broad, hazy, muffin face, 
a sleepy eye, and a full double chin. He had a 
deep ravine from each corner of his mouth, not 
occasioued by any irascible contraction of the 
muscles, but apparently the deep-worn channels 
of two rivulets of gravy that oozed out from the 
huge mouthfuls that he masticated. But I for- 
bear to dwell on the odd beings that were congre- 



LIFE IN EUROPE. 109 

gated together in one hotel. I have been thus 
prolix about the old general because you desired 
me in one of your letters to give you ample de- 
tails whenever I happened to be in company 
with the 'great and glorious/ and old Trotter 
is more deserving of the epithet than any of the 
personages I have lately encountered." 

It was at the same resort of fashion and 
disease that Irving observed a phenomenon 
upon which Brevoort had commented as 
beginning to be noticeable in America. 

" Your account [he writes] of the brevity of 
the old lady's nether garments distresses me. . . . 
I cannot help observing that this fashion of short 
skirts must have been invented by the French 
ladies as a complete trick upon John Bull's 
'woman-folk.' It was introduced just at the 
time the English flocked in such crowds to Paris. 
The French women, you know, are remarkable 
for pretty feet and ankles, and can display them 
in perfect security. The English are remarkable 
for the contrary. Seeing the proneness of the 
English women to follow French fashions, they 
therefore led them into this disastrous one, and 
sent them home with their petticoats up to their 
knees, exhibiting such a variety of sturdy little 
legs as would have afforded Hogarth an ample 
choice to match one of his assemblages of queer 



110 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

heads. It is really a great source of curiosity 
and amusement on the promenade of a watering- 
place to observe the little sturdy English women, 
trudging about in their stout leather shoes, and 
to study the various ' understandings ' betrayed 
to view by this mischievous fashion." 

The years passed rather wearily in Eng- 
land. Peter continued to be an invalid, 
and Washington himself, never robust, felt 
the pressure more and more of the irksome 
and unprosperous business affairs. Of his 
own want of health, however, he never com- 
plains ; he maintains a patient spirit in the 
ill turns of fortune, and his impatience in 
the business complications is that of a man 
hindered from liis proper career. The 
times were depressing. 

" In America [he writes to Brevoort] you 
have financial difficulties, the embarrassments of 
trade, the distress of merchants, but here you 
have what is far worse, the distress of the poor 
— not merely mental sufferings, but the abso- 
lute miseries of nature : hunger, nakedness, 
wretchedness of all kinds that the laboring peo- 
ple in this country are liable to. In the best of 
times they do but subsist, but in adverse times 
they starve. How the country is to extricate it- 



LIFE IN EUROPE. Ill 

self from its present embarrassment, how it is to 
escape from the poverty that seems to be over- 
whelming it, and how the government is to quiet 
the multitudes that are already turbulent and 
clamorous, and are yet but in the beginning of 
their real miseries, I cannot conceive." 

The embarrassments of the agricultural 
and laboring classes and of the government 
were as serious in 1816 as they have again 
become in 1881. 

During 1817 Irving was mostly in the 
depths of gloom, a prey to the monotony 
of life and torpidity of intellect. Rays of 
sunlight pierce the clouds occasionally. The 
Van Wart household at Birmingham was a 
frequent refuge for him, and we have pretty 
pictures of the domestic life there ; glimpses 
of Old Parr, whose reputation as a gourmand 
was only second to his fame as a Grecian, 
and of that delightful genius, the Rev. Rann 
Kennedy, who might have been famous if 
he had ever committed to paper the long 
poems that he carried about in his head, 
and the engaging sight of Irving playing 
the flute for the little Van Warts to dance. 
During the holidays Irving paid another 
visit to the haunts of Isaac Walton, and his 



112 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

description of the adventures and mishaps 
of a pleasure party on the banks of the 
Dove suggest that the incorrigible bachelor 
was still sensitive to the allurements of life, 
and liable to wander over the " dead-line " 
of matrimonial danger. He confesses that 
he was all day in Elysium. " When we 
had descended from the last precipice," he 
says, "and come to where the Dove flowed 
musically through a verdant meadow — then 
— fancy me, oh, thou 'sweetest of poets,' 
wandering by the course of this romantic 
stream — a lovely girl hanging on my arm, 
pointing out the beauties of the surround- 
ing scenery, and repeating in the most dul- 
cet voice tracts of heaven-born poetr3^ If 
a strawberry smothered in cream has any 
consciousness of its delicious situation, it 
must feel as 1 felt at that moment." In- 
deed, the letters of this doleful year are 
enlivened by so many references to the 
graces and attractions of lovely women, seen 
and remembered, that insensibility cannot 
be attributed to the author of the " Sketch- 
Book." 

The death of Irving's mother in the 
spring of 1817 determined him to remain 



LIFE IN EUROPE, 113 

another year abroad. Business did not im- 
prove. His brother-in-law Van Wart called 
a meeting of his creditors, the Irving broth- 
ers floundered on into greater depths of 
embarrassment, and Washington, who could 
not think of returning home to face poverty 
in New York, began to revolve a plan that 
would give him a scanty but sufficient sup- 
port. The idea of the " Sketch-Book " was 
in his mind. He had as yet made few liter- 
ary acquaintances in England. It is an il- 
lustration of the warping effect of friendship 
upon the critical faculty that his opinion of 
Moore at this time was totally changed by 
subsequent intimacy. At a later date the 
two authors became warm friends and mut- 
ual admirers of each other's productions. 
In June, 1817, " Lalla Rookh " was just from 
the press, and Irving writes to Brevoort : 
" Moore's new poem is just out. I have not 
sent it to you, for it is dear and worthless. 
It is written in the most effeminate taste, 
and fit only to delight boarding-school girls 
and lads of nineteen just in their first loves. 
Moore should have kept to songs and epi- 
grammatic conceits. His stream of intellect 
is too small to bear expansion — it spreads 



114 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

into mere surface." Too much cream for 
the strawberry ! 

Notwithstanding business harassments in 
the summer and fall of 1817 he found time 
for some wandering about the island ; he 
was occasionally in London, dining at Mur- 
ray's, where he made the acquaintance of 
the elder D'Israeli and other men of let- 
ters (one of his notes of a dinner at Mur- 
ray's is this : " Lord Byron told Murray 
that he was much happier after breaking 
with Lady Byron — he hated this still, quiet 
life ") ; he was publishing a new edition of 
the " Knickerbocker," illustrated by Leslie 
and Allston ; and we find him at home in 
the friendly and brilliant society of Edin- 
burgh ; both the magazine publishers, Con- 
stable and Blackwood, were very civil to 
him, and Mr. Jeffi-ey (Mrs. Renwick was 
his sister) was very attentive ; and he passed 
some days with Walter Scott, whose home 
life he so agreeably describes in his sketch 
of " Abbotsford." He looked back long- 
ingly to the happy hours there (he writes 
to his brother) : " Scott reading, occasionally, 
from ^Prince Arthur'; telling border stories 
or characteristic anecdotes ; Sophy Scott 



LIFE IN EUROPE. 115 

singing with charming naivetS a little bor- 
der song ; the rest of the family disposed in 
listening groups, while greyhounds, span- 
iels, and cats bask in unbounded indulgence 
before the fire. Everything about Scott is 
perfect character and picture." 

In the beginning of 1818 the business af- 
fairs of the brothers became so irretrievably 
involved that Peter and Washington went 
through the humiliating experience of tak- 
ing the bankrupt act. Washington's con- 
nection with the concern was little more 
than nominal, and he felt small anxiety for 
himself, and was eager to escape from an 
occupation which had taken all the elastic- 
ity out of his mind. But on account of his 
brothers, in this dismal wreck of a family 
connection, his soul was steeped in bitter- 
ness. Pending the proceedings of the com- 
missioners, he shut himself up day and night 
to the study of German, and while waiting 
for the examination used to walk up and 
down the room, conning over the German 
verbs. 

In August he went up to London and 
cast himself irrevocably upon the fortune of 
his pen. He had accumulated some mate- 



116 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

rials, and upon these he set to work. Ef- 
forts were made at home to procure for him 
the position of Secretary of Legation in 
London, which drew from him the remark, 
when they came to his knowledge, that he 
did not like to have his name hackneyed 
about among the office-seekers in Washing- 
ton. Subsequently his brother William 
wrote him that Commodore Decatur was 
keeping open for him the office of Chief 
Clerk in the Navy Department. To the 
mortification and chagrin of his brothers, 
"Washington declined the position. He was 
resolved to enter upon no duties that would 
interfere with his literary pursuits. 

This resolution, which exhibited a mod- 
est confidence in his own powers, and the 
energy with which he threw himself into 
his career, showed the fibre of the man. 
Suddenly, by the reverse of fortune, he who 
had been regarded as merely the ornamental 
genius of the family became its stay and 
support. If he had accepted the aid of his 
brothers, during the experimental period of 
his life, in the loving spirit of confidence in 
which it was given, he was not less ready 
to reverse the relations when the time came ; 



LIFE IN EUROPE, 117 

the delicacy with which his assistance was 
rendered, the scrupulous care taken to con- 
vey the feeling that his brothers were doing 
him a continued favor in sharing his good 
fortune, and their own unjeakuis acceptance 
of what they would as freely have given if 
circumstances had been different, form one 
of the pleasantest instances of brotherly 
concord and self-abnegation. I know noth- 
ing more admirable than the life-long rela- 
tions of this talented and sincere family. 

Before the " Sketch-Book" was launched, 
and while Irving was casting about for the 
means of livelihood, Walter Scott urged 
him to take the editorship of an Anti-Ja- 
cobin periodical in Edinburgh. This he de- 
clined because he had no taste for politics, 
and because he was averse to stated, rou- 
tine literary work. Subsequently Mr. Mur- 
ray offered him a salary of a thousand 
guineas to edit a periodical to be published 
by himself. This was declined, as also was 
another offer to contribute to the " London 
Quarterly " with the liberal pay of one liun- 
dred guineas an article. For the " Quar- 
terly" he would not write, because, he says, 
" it has always been so hostile to my coun- 



118 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

try, I cannot draw a pen in its service." 
This is worthy of note in view of a charge 
made afterwards, when he was attacked 
for his English sympathies, that he was a 
frequent contributor to this anti-American 
review. His sole contributions to it were 
a gratuitous review of the book of an Amer- 
ican author, and an explanatory article, 
written at the desire of his publisher, on 
the " Conquest of Granada." It is not nec- 
essary to dwell upon the small scandal about 
Irving's un-American feeling. If there was 
ever a man who loved his country and was 
proud of it; whose broad, deep, and strong 
patriotism did not need the saliency of ig- 
norant partisanship, it was Washington Ir- 
ving. He was like his namesake an Amer- 
ican, and with the same pure loyalty and 
unpartisan candor. 

The first number of the " Sketch-Book " 
was published in America in May, 1819. 
Irving was then thirty-six years old. The 
series was not completed till September, 
1820. The first installment was carried 
mainly by two papers, " The Wife " and 
V'' Rip Van Winkle : " the one full of tender 
pathos that touched all hearts, because it 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. HQ 

was recognized as a genuine expression of 
the author's nature ; and the other a happy 
effort of imaginative humor, — one of those 
strokes of genius that recreate the world 
and clothe it with the unfading hues of ro- 
mance ; the theme was an old-world echo, 
transformed by genius into a primal story 
that will endure as long as the Hudson flows 
through its mountains to the sea. A great 
artist can paint a great picture on a small 
canvas. 

The " Sketch-Book " created a sensation 
in America, and the echo of it was not long 
in reaching England. The general chorus 
of approval and the rapid sale surprised Ir- 
ving, and sent his spirits up, but success 
had the effect on him that it always has on 
a fine nature. He writes to Leslie : " Now 
you suppose I am all on the alert, and full 
of spirit and excitement. No such thing. I 
am just as good for nothing as ever I was; 
and, indeed, have been flurried and put out 
of my way by these puffings. I feel some- 
thing as I suppose you did when your pict- 
ure met with success, — anxious to do .some- 
thing better, and at a loss what to do." 

It was with much misgiving that Irving 



120 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

made this yenture. " I feel great diflS- 
dence," he writes Brevoort, March 3, 1819, 
" about this reappearance in literature. I am 
conscious of my imperfections, and my mind 
has been for a long time past so pressed 
upon and agitated by various cares and anx- 
ieties, that I fear it has lost much of its 
cheerfulness and some of its activity. I 
have attempted no lofty theme, nor sought 
to look wise and learned, which appears to 
be very much the fashion among our Amer- 
ican writers at present. I have preferred 
addressing myself to the feelings and fancy 
of the reader more than to his judgment. 
My writings may appear, therefore, light 
and trifling in our country of philosophers 
and politicians. But if they possess merit 
in the class of literature to which they be- 
long, it is all to which I aspire in the work. 
I seek only to blow a flute accompaniment 
in the national concert, and leave others 
to play the fiddle and French-horn." * This 
diffidence was not assumed. All through 
his career, a breath of criticism ever so 
slight, acted temporarily like a hoar-frost 
upon his productive power. He always saw 
reasons to take sides with his critic. Speak- 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. 121 

ing of "vanity" in a letter of March, 1820, 
when Scott and Lockhart and all the Re- 
views were in a full chorus of acclaim, he 
says : " I wish I did possess more of it, but 
it seems my curse at present to have any- 
thing but confidence in myself or pleasure 
in anything I have written." 

In a similar strain he had written, in 
September, 1819, on the news of the cor- 
dial reception of the '' Sketch-Book " in 
America : — 

" The manner in which the work has been re- 
ceived, and the eulogiums that have been passed 
upon it in the American papers and periodical 
works, have completely overwhelmed me. They 
go far, far beyond my most sanguine expecta- 
tions, and indeed are expressed with such pecul- 
iar warmth and kindness as to aifect me in the 
tenderest manner. The receipt of your letter, 
and the reading of some of the criticisms this 
morning, have rendered me nervous for the whole 
day. I feel almost appalled by such success, and 
fearful that it cannot be real, or that it is not 
fully merited, or that I shall not act up to the 
expectations that may be formed. We are whim- 
sically constituted beings. I had got out of con- 
ceit of all that I had written, and considered it 
very questionable stuff; and now that it is so ex- 



122 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

travagantly bepraised, I begin to feel afraid that 
I shall not do as well again. However, we shall 
see as we get on. As yet I am extremely irregu- 
lar and precarious in my fits of composition. The 
least thing puts me out of the vein, and even 
applause flurries me and prevents my writing, 
though of course it will ultimately be a stimu- 
lus. . . . 

" I have been somewhat touched by the man- 
ner in which my writings have been noticed in 
the ' Evening Post.' 1 had considered Coleman 
as cherishing an ill-will toward me, and, to tell 
the truth, have not always been the most court- 
eous in my opinions concerning him. It is a pain- 
ful thing either to dislike others or to fancy they 
dislike us, and I have felt both pleasure and self- 
reproach at finding myself so mistaken with re- 
spect to Mr. Coleman. I like to out with a 
good feeling as soon as it rises, and so I have 
dropt Coleman a line on the subject. 

" I hope you will not attribute all this sensi- 
bility to the kind reception I have met to an 
author's vanity. I am sure it proceeds from 
very different sources. Vanity could not bring 
the tears into my eyes as they have been brought 
by the kindness of my countrymen. I have felt 
cast down, blighted, and broken-spirited, and 
these sudden rays of sunshine agitate me more 
than they revive me. I hope — I hope I may 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. 123 

yet do something more worthy of the apprecia- 
tion lavished on me." 

Irving had not contemplated publishing 
in England, but the papers began to be re- 
printed, and he was obliged to protect him- 
self. He offered the sketches to Murray, 
the princely publisher, who afterwards dealt 
so liberally with him, but the venture was 
declined in a civil note, written in that 
charming phraseology with which authors 
are familiar, but which they would in vain 
seek to imitate. Irving afterwards greatly 
prized this letter. He undertook the risks 
of the publication himself, and the book 
sold well, although " written by an author 
- the public knew nothing of, and published 
by a bookseller who was going to ruin." In 
a few months Murray, who was thereafter 
proud to be Irving's publisher, undertook 
the publication of the two volumes of the 
"Sketch-Book," and also of the " Knicker- 
bocker " history, which Mr. Lockhart had 
just been warmly praising in " Black- 
wood's." Indeed, he bought the copyright 
of the " Sketch-Book " for two hundred 
pounds. The time for the publisher's com- 
plaisance had arrived sooner even than Scott 



124 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

predicted in one of his kindly letters to Ir- 
ving, " when 

' Your name is up and may go 
From Toledo to Madrid.' " 

Irving passed five years in England. 
Once recognized by the literary world, 
whatever was best in the society of letters 
and of fashion was open to him. He was 
a welcome guest in the best London houses, 
where he met the foremost literary per- 
sonages of the time, and established most 
cordial relations with many of them ; not to 
speak of statesmen, soldiers, and men and 
women of fashion, there were the elder D'ls- 
raeli, Southey, Campbell, Hallam, Gilford, 
Milman, Foscolo, Rogers, Scott, and Bel- 
zoni fresh from his Egyptian explorations. 
In Irving's letters this old society passes 
in review : Murray's drawing-rooms ; the 
amusing blue-stocking coteries of fashion of 
which Lady Caroline Lamb was a pro- 
moter ; the Countess of Besborough's, at 
whose house The Duke could be seen ; the 
Wimbledon country seat of Lord and Lady 
Spence; Belzoni, a giant of six feet five, 
the centre of a group of eager auditors of 
the Egyptian marvels; Hallam, affable and 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. 125 

unpretending, and a copious talker ; Gifford, 
a small, shriveled, deformed man of sixty, 
with something of a humped back, eyes 
that diverge, and a large mouth, reclining on 
a sofa, propped up by cushions, v^^ith none of 
the petulance that you would expect from 
his Review, but a mild, simple, unassum- 
ing man, — he it is who prunes the contri- 
butions and takes the sting out of them 
(one would like to have seen them before 
the sting was taken out) ; and Scott, the 
right honest-hearted, entering into the pass- 
ing scene with the hearty enjoyment of a 
child, to whom literature seems a sport 
rather than a labor or ambition, an author 
void of all the petulance, egotism, and pe- 
culiarities of the craft. We have Moore's 
authority for saying that the literary dinner 
described in the " The Tales of a Traveller," 
whimsical as it seems and pervaded by the 
conventional notion of the relations of pub- 
lishers and authors, had a personal foun- 
dation. Irving's satire of both has always 
the old-time Grub Street flavor, or at least 
the reminiscent tone, which is, by the way, 
quite characteristic of nearly everything that 
he wrote about England. He was always 



126 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

a little in the past tense. Bncktliorne's ad- 
vice to his friend is, never to be eloquent to 
an author except in praise of his own works, 
or, what is nearly as acceptable, in dispar- 
agement of the work of his contemporaries. 
" If ever he speaks favorably of the pro- 
ductions of a particular friend, dissent 
boldly from him ; pronounce his friend to 
be a blockhead ; never fear his being vexed. 
Much as people speak of the irritability of 
authors, I never found one to take of- 
fense at such contradictions. No, no, sir, 
/ authors are particularly candid in admit- 
ting the faults of their friends." At the 
dinner Buckthorne explains the geograph- 
ical boundaries in the land of literature : 
you may judge tolerably well of an au- 
thor's popularity by the wine his bookseller 
gives him. " An author crosses the port 
line about the third edition, and gets into 
claret ; and when he has reached the sixth 
or seventh, he may revel in champagne and 
burgundy." The two ends of the table were 
occupied by the two partners, one of whom 
laughed at the clever things said by the 
poet, while the other maintained his sedate- 
ness and kept on carving. " His gravity was 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. 127 

explained to us by my friend Bucktliorne. 
He informed me that the concerns of the 
house were admirably distributed among 
the partners. Thus, for instance, said he, 
the grave gentleman is the carving partner, 
who attends to the joints; and the other is 
the laughing partner, who attends to the 
jokes." If any of the jokes from the lower 
end of the table reached the upper end, they 
seldom produced much effect. " Even the 
laughing partner did not think it necessary 
to honor them with a smile ; which my 
neighbor Buckthorne accounted for by in- 
forming me that there was a certain degree 
of popularity to be obtained before a book- 
seller could afford to laugh at an author's 
jokes." 

In August, 1820, we find Irving in Paris, 
where his reputation secured him a hearty 
welcome: he was often at the Cannings' 
and at Lord Holland's ; Talma, then the 
king of the stage, became his friend, and 
there he made the acquaintance of Thomas 
Moore, which ripened into a familiar and 
lasting friendship. The two men were 
drawn to each other; Irving greatly ad- 
mired the "noble-hearted, manly, spirited 



128 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

little fellow, with a mind as generous as his 
fancy is brilliant." Talma was playing 
Hamlet to overflowing houses, which hung 
on his actions with breathless attention, or 
broke into ungovernable applause ; ladies 
were carried fainting from the boxes. The 
actor is described as short in stature, rather 
inclined to fat, with a large face and a thick 
neck ; his eyes are bluish, and have a pe- 
culiar cast in them at times. He said to 
Irving that he thought the French charac- 
ter much changed — graver; the day of the 
classic drama, mere declamation and fine 
language, had gone by ; the Revolution had 
taught them to demand real life, incident, 
passion, character. Irving's life in Paris 
was gay enough, and seriously interfered 
with his literary projects. He had the for- 
tunes of his brother Peter on his mind also, 
and invested his earnings, then and for some 
yeai's after, in enterprises for his benefit that 
ended in disappointment. 

The " Sketch-Book " was making a great 
fame for him in England. Jeffrey, in the 
" Edinburgh Review," paid it a most flat- 
tering tribute, and even the savage " Quar- 
terly " praised it. A rumor attributed it 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. 129 

to Scott, who was always masquerading ; at 
least, it was said, he might have revised it, 
and should have the credit of its exquisite 
style. This led to a sprightly correspond- 
ence between Lady Littleton, the daughter 
of Earl Spencer, one of the most accom- 
plished and lovely women of England, and 
Benjamin Rush, Minister to the Court of 
St. James, in the course of which Mr. Rush 
suggested the propriety of giving out un- 
der his official seal that Irving was the au- 
thor of " Waverley." " Geoffrey Craj^on is 
the most fashionable fellow of the day," 
wrote the painter Leslie. Lord Byron, in 
a letter to Murray, underscored his admira- 
tion of the author, and subsequently said 
to an American : " His Crayon, — I know 
it by heart ; at least, there is not a passage 
that I cannot refer to immediately." And 
afterwards he wrote to Moore, " His writ- 
ings are my delight." There seemed to be, 
as some one wrote, ''a kind of conspiracy to 
hoist him over the heads of his contempo- 
raries." Perhaps the most satisfactory evi- 
dence of his popularity was his publisher's 
enthusiasm. The publisher is an infallible 
contemporary barometer. 



130 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

It is worthy of note that an American 
should have captivated public attention at 
the moment when Scott and Byron were the 
idols of the English-reading world. 

In the following year Irving was again 
in England, visiting his sister in Birming- 
ham, and tasting moderately the delights 
of London. He was, indeed, something of 
an invalid. An eruptive malady, — the re- 
venge of nature, perhaps, for defeat in her 
earlier attack on his lungs, — appearing in 
his ankles, incapacitated him for walking, 
tormented him at intervals, so that literary 
composition was impossible, sent him on 
pilgrimages to curative springs, and on jour- 
neys undertaken for distraction and amuse- 
ment, in which all work except that of 
seeing and absorbing material had to be 
postponed. He was subject to this recur- 
ring invalidism all his life, and we must re- 
gard a good part of the work he did as a 
pure triumph of determination over physical 
discouragement. This year the fruits of his 
interrupted labor appeared in " Bracebridge 
Hall," a volume that was well received, but 
did not add much to his reputation, though 
it contained " Dolph Heyliger," one of his 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. 131 

most characteristic Dutch stories, and the 
" Stout Gentleman," one of his daintiest 
and most artistic bits of restrained humor.^ 
Irving sought relief from his malady by 
an extended tour in Germany. He so- 
journed some time in Dresden, whither his 
reputation had preceded him, and where he 
was cordially and familiarly received, not 
only by the foreign residents, but at the 
prim and antiquated little court of King 
Frederick Augustus and Queen Amalia. Of 
Irving at this time Mrs. Emily Fuller (iiee 
Foster), whose relations with him have been 
referred to, wrote in 1860 : — 

" He was thoroughly a gentleman, not merely 
in external manners and look, but to the inner- 
most fibres and core of his heart : sweet-tem- 
pered, gentle, fastidious, sensitive, and gifted with 
the warmest affections ; the most delightful and 

1 I was once [says his biographer] reading aloud in his 
presence a very flattering review of his works, Avhich had 
been sent him by the critic in 1848, and smiled as I came 
to this sentence : " His most comical pieces have always 
a serious end in view." " You laugh," said he, with that 
air of whimsical significance so natural to him, " but it 
is true. I have kept that to myself hitherto, but that 
man has found me out. He has detected the moral of 
the Stout Gentleman." 



132 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

invariably interesting companion ; gay and full 
of humor, even in sjDite of occasional fits of mel- 
ancholy, which he was, however, seldom subject 
to when with those he liked ; a gift of conver- 
sation that flowed like a full river in sunshine, — 
bright, easy, and abundant." 

Those were pleasant days at Dresden, 
filled up with the society of bright and 
warm-hearted people, varied by royal boar 
hunts, stiff ceremonies at the little court, 
tableaux, and private theatricals, yet tinged 
with a certain melancholy, partly constitu- 
tional, that appears in most of his letters. 
His mind was too unsettled for much com- 
position. He had little self-confidence, and 
was easily put out by a breath of adverse 
criticism. At intervals he would come to 
the Fosters to read a manuscript of his 
own. 

" On these occasions strict orders were given 
that no visitor should be admitted till the last 
word had been read, and the whole praised or 
criticised, as the case may be. Of criticism, how- 
ever, we were very spare, as a slight word would 
put him out of conceit of a whole work. One of 
the best things he has published was thrown 
aside, unfinished, for years, because the friend to 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. 133 

whom he read it, happening, unfortunately, not 
to be well, and sleepy, did not seem to take the 
interest in it he expected. Too easily discour- 
ao-ed, it was not till the latter part of his career 
that he ever appreciated himself as an author. 
One condemning whisper sounded louder in his 
ear than the plaudits of thousands." 

This from Miss Emily Foster, who else- 
where notes his kindliness in observing 
life : — 

" Some persons, in looking upon life, view it 
as they would view a picture, with a stern and 
criticising eye. He also looks upon life as a 
picture, but to catch its beauties, its lights, — not 
its defects and shadows. On the former he loves 
to dwell. He has a wonderful knack at shut- 
ting his eyes to the sinister side of anything. 
Never beat a more kindly heart than his ; alive 
to the sorrows, but not to the faults, of his friends, 
but doubly alive to their virtues and goodness. 
Indeed, people seemed to grow more good with 
one so unselfish and so gentle." 

In London, some years later : — 

"He was still the same; time changed him 
very little. His conversation was as interesting 
as ever [he was always an excellent relater] ; 



134 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

his dark gray eyes still full of varying feeling ; 
his smile half playful, half melancholy, but ever 
kind. All that was mean, or envious, or harsh, 
he seemed to turn from so completely that, when 
with him, it seemed that such things were not. 
All gentle and tender affections, Nature in her 
sweetest or grandest moods, pervaded his whole 
imagination, and left no place for low or evil 
thoughts ; and when in good spirits, his humor, 
his droll descriptions, and his fun would make 
the gravest or the saddest laugh." 

As to Irving's " state of mind " in Dres- 
den, it is pertinent to quote a passage from 
what we gather to be a journal kept by 
Miss Flora Foster : — 

" He has written. He has confessed to my 
mother, as to a true and dear friend, his love for 
E , and his conviction of its utter hopeless- 
ness. He feels himself unable to combat it. He 
thinks he must try, by absence, to bring more 
peace to his mind. Yet he cannot bear to give 
up our friendship, — an intercourse become so 
dear to him, and so necessary to his daily happi- 
ness. Poor Irving ! " 

It is well for our peace of mind that we 
do not know what is going down co^icern- 
ing us in "journals." On his way to the 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. 135 

Herriihutliers, Mr. Irving wrote to Mrs. 
Foster : — 

'* When I consider how I have trifled with my 
time, suffered painful vicissitudes of feeling, which 
for a time damaged both mind and body, — when 
I consider all this, I reiDroach myself that I did 
not listen to the first im^Dulse of my mind, and 
abandon Dresden long since. And yet I think 
of returning ! Why should I come back to Dres- 
den ? The very inclination that dooms me thither 
should furnish reasons for my staying away." 

Ill this mood, the Herrnhuthers, in their 
right-angled, whitewashed world, were little 
attractive. 

" If the Herrnhuthers were right in their no- 
tions, the world would have been laid out in 
squares and angles and right lines, and every- 
thing would have been white and black and 
snufF-color, as they have been clipped by these 
merciless retrenchers of beauty and enjoyment. 
And then their dormitories! Think of between 
one and two hundred of these simple gentlemen 
cooped up at night in one great chamber ! What 
a concert of barrel-organs in this great resound- 
ing saloon ! And then their plan of marriage ! 
The very birds of the air choose their mates from 
preference and inclination ; but this detestable 



136 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

system of lot! The sentiment of love may be, and 
is, in a great measure, a fostered growth of poetry 
and romance, and balderdashed with false senti- 
ment; but with all its vitiations, it is the beauty 
and the charm, the flavor and the fragrance, of 
all intercourse between man and woman ; it is the 
rosy cloud in the morning of life ; and if it does 
too often resolve itself into the shower, yet, to 
my mind, it only makes our nature more fruitful 
in what is excellent and amiable." 

Better suited hira Prague, which is cer- 
tainly a part of the " naughty world " that 
Irving preferred ; — 

" Old Prague still keeps up its warrior look, 
and swaggers about with its rusty corselet and 
helm, though both sadly battered. There seems 
to me to be an air of style and fashion about the 
first people of Prague, and a good deal of beauty 
in the fashionable circle. This, perhaps, is ow- 
ing to my contemplating it from a distance, and 
my imagination lending it tints occasionally. Both 
actors and audience, contemplated from the pit 
of a theatre, look better than when seen in the 
boxes and behind the scenes. I like to contem- 
plate society in this way occasionally, and to dress 
it up by the help of fancy, to my own taste. 
When I get in the midst of it, it is too apt to lose 
its charm, and then there is the trouble and eyinui 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. 137 

of being obliged to take an active part in the 
farce ; but to be a mere spectator is amusing. I 
am glad, therefore, that I brought no letters to 
Prague. I shall leave it with a favorable idea 
of its society and manners, from knowing nothing 
accurate of either; and with a firm belief that 
every pretty woman I have seen is an angel, as 
I am apt to think every pretty woman, until I 
have found her out." 

In July, 1823, Irving returned to Paris, 
to the society of the Moores and the fascina- 
tions of the gay town, and to fitful literary 
work. Our author wrote with great facility 
and rapidity when the inspiration was on 
him, and produced an astonishing amount 
of manuscript in a short period ; but he 
often waited and fretted through barren 
weeks and months for the movement of his 
fitful genius. His mind was teeming con- 
stantly with new projects, and nothing could 
exceed his industry when once he had taken 
a work in hand ; but he never acquired the 
exact methodical habits which enable some 
literary men to calculate their power and 
quantity of production as accurately as that 
of a cotton mill. 

The political changes in France during 



138 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the period of Irving's long sojourn in Paris 
do not seem to have taken much of his at- 
tention. In a letter dated October 5, 1824, 
lie says : " We have had much bustle in 
Paris of late, between the death of one king 
and the succession of another. I have be- 
come a little callous to pubUc sights, but 
have, notwithstanding, been to see the fu- 
neral of the late king, and the entrance into 
Paris of the present one. Charles X. be- 
gins his reign in a very conciliating manner, 
and is really popular. The Bourbons have 
gained great accession of power within a few 
years." 

The succession of Charles X. was also ob- 
served b}^ another foreigner, who \vas mak- 
ing agreeable personal notes at that time in 
Paris, but who is not referred to by Irving, 
who for some unexplained reason failed to 
meet the genial Scotsman at breakfast. Per- 
haps it is to his failure to do so that he owes 
the semi-respectful reference to himself in 
Carlyle's " Reminiscences." Lacking the 
stimulus to his vocabulary of personal ac- 
quaintance, Carlyle simpl}^ wrote : " Wash- 
ington Irving was said to be in Paris, a kind 
of lion at that time, whose books I some- 



LITERARY ACTIVITY. 139 

what esteemed. One day the Emerson- 
Teniiant people bragged that they had en- 
gaged hhn to breakfast with us at a certam 
cafe next morning. We all attended duly, 
Strackey among the rest, but no Washing- 
ton came. 'Couldn't rightly come,' said 
Malcolm to me in a judicious aside^ as we 
cheerfully breakfasted without him. I never 
saw Washington at all, but still have a mild 
esteem of the good man." This ought to be 
accepted as evidence of Carlyle's disinclina- 
tion to say ill-natured things of those he did 
not know. 

The "Tales of a Traveller" appeared in 
1824. In the author's opinion, with which 
the best critics agreed, it contained some of 
his best writing. He himself said in a letter 
to Brevoort, " There was more of an artistic 
touch about it, though this is not a thing 
to be appreciated by the many." It was 
rapidly written. The movement has a de- 
lightful spontaneity, and it is wanting in 
none of the charms of his style, unless, per- 
haps, the style is over-refined ; but it was not 
a novelty, and the public began to criticise 
and demand a new note. This may have 
been one reason why he turned to a fresh 



140 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

field and to graver themes. For a time he 
busied himself on some American essays of 
a semi-political nature, ^hich were never 
finished, and he seriously contemplated a 
Life of Washington ; but all these projects 
were thrown aside for one that kindled his 
imagination, — the Life of Columbus ; and 
in February, 1826, he was domiciled at Ma- 
drid, and settled down to a long period of 
unremitting and intense labor, 



CHAPTER VII. 
IN SPAIN. 

Irving's residence in Spain, which was 
prolonged till September, 1829, was the most 
fruitful period in his life, and of considerable 
consequence to literature. It is not easy to 
overestimate the debt of Americans to the 
man who first opened to them the fascinat- 
ing domain of early Spanish history and 
romance. We can conceive of it by reflect- 
ing upon the blank that would exist with- 
out "The Alhambra,"'" The Conquest of 
Granada," " The Legends of the Conquest 
of Spain," and I may add the popular loss 
if we had not " The Lives of Columbus and 
his Companions." f Irving had the creative 
touch, or at least the magic of the pen, to 
give a definite, universal, and romantic in- 
terest to whatever he described) We can- 
not deny him that. A few lines about the 
inn of the Red Horse at Stratford-on-Avon 
created a new object of pilgrimage right in 



142 WASHINGTON- IRVING. 

the presence of tlie house and tomb of the 
poet. And how much of the romantic in- 
terest of all the Enghsh-reading world in 
the Alhambra is due to him ; the name in- 
variably recalls his own, and every visitor 
there is conscious of his presence. He has 
again and again been criticised almost out of 
court, and written down to the rank of the 
mere idle humorist ; but as often as I take 
up "The Conquest of Granada" or "The 
Alhambra " I am aware of something that 
has eluded the critical analysis, and I con- 
clude that if one cannot write for the few 
it may be worth while to write for the 
many. 

It was Irving's intention, when he went 
to Madrid, merely to make a translation of 
some historical documents which were then 
appearing, edited by M. Navarrete, from 
the papers of Bishop Las Gasas and the 
journals of Columbus, entitled " The Voy- 
ages of Columbus." But when he found 
that this publication, although it contained 
many documents, hitherto unknown, that 
threw much light on the discovery of the 
New World, was rather a rich mass of ma- 
terials for a history than a history itself, 



IN SPAIN. 143 

and that he had access in Madrid libraries to 
great collections of Spanish colonial history, 
he changed his plan, and determined to 
write a Life of Columbus. His studies for 
this led him deep into the old chronicles 
and legends of Spain, and out of these, with 
his own travel and observation, came those 
books of mingled fables, sentiment, fact, and 
humor which are after all the most endur- 
ing fruits of his residence in Spain. 

Notwithstanding his absorption in literary- 
pursuits, Irving was not denied the charm 
of domestic society, which was all his life 
his chief delight. The house he most fre- 
quented in Madrid was that of Mr. D'Ou- 
bril, the Russian Minister. In his charming 
household were Madame D'Oubril and her 
niece, Mademoiselle Antoinette Bollviller, 
and Prince Dolgorouki, a young attache of 
the legation. His letters to Prince Dol- 
gorouki and to Mademoiselle Antoinette 
give a most lively and entertaining picture 
of his residence and travels in Spain. In 
one of them to the prince, who was tem- 
porarily absent from the city, we have 
glimpses of the happy hours, the happiest 
of all hours, passed in this refined family 



144 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

circle. Here is one that exhibits the still 
fresh romance in the heart of forty-four 
years : — 

" Last evening, at your house, we had one of 
the most lovely tableaux I ever beheld. It was 
the conception of Murillo, represented by Ma- 
dame A . Mademoiselle Antoinette arranged 

the tableau with her usual good taste, and the ef- 
fect was enchanting. It was more like a vision of 
something spiritual and celestial than a represen- 
tation of anything merely mortal ; or rather it was 
woman as in my romantic days I have been apt 
to imagine her, approaching to the angeUc nat- 
ure. I have frequently admired Madame A 

as a mere beautiful woman, when I have seen her 
dressed up in the fantastic attire of the mode ; 
but here I beheld her elevated into a repi-esenta- 
tive of the divine purity and grace, exceeding 
even the heau ideal of the painter, for she even 
surpassed in beauty the picture of Murillo. I 
felt as if I could have knelt down and wor- 
shiped her. Heavens! what power women 
would have over us, if they knew how to sus- 
tain the attractions which nature has bestowed 
upon them, and which we are so ready to assist 
by our imaginations ! For my part, I am super- 
stitious in my admiration of them, and like to 
walk in a perpetual delusion, decking them out 



IN SPAIN. 145 

as divinities. I thank no one to undeceive me 
and to prove that they are mere mortals." 

And he continues in another strain : 

" How full of interest everything is connected 
with the old times in Spain ! I am more and 
more delighted with the old literature of the 
country, its chronicles, plays, and romances. It 
has the wild vigor and luxuriance of the forests 
of my native country, which, however savage and 
entangled, are more captivating to my imagina- 
tion than the finest parks and cultivated wood- 
lands. 

" As I live in the neighborhood of the library 
of the Jesuits' College of St. Isidoro, I pass most 
of my mornings there. You cannot think what 
a delight I feel in passing through its galleries, 
iilled with old parchment-bound books. It is a 
perfect wilderness of curiosity to me. What a 
deep-felt, quiet luxury there is in delving into the 
rich ore of these old, neglected volumes ! How 
these hours of uninterrupted intellectual enjoy- 
ment, so tranquil and independent, repay one for 
the ennui and disappointment too often experi- 
enced in the intercourse of society ! How they 
serve to bring back the feelings into a harmoni- 
ous tone, after being jarred and put out of tune 
by the collisions with the world ! " 

With the romantic period of Spanish his- 

10 



146 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

tory Irving was in ardent sympathy. The 
story of the Saracens entranced his mind ; 
his imagination disclosed its Oriental qual- 
ity while he pored over the romance and 
the ruin of that land of fierce contrasts, 
of arid wastes beaten by the burning sun, 
valleys blooming with intoxicating beauty, 
cities of architectural splendor and pictur- 
esque squalor. It is matter of regret that 
he, who seemed to need the southern sun to 
ripen his genius, never made a pilgrimage 
into the East, and gave to the world pictures 
of the lands that he would have touched 
with the charm of their own color and the 
witchery of their own romance. 

I will quote again from the letters, for 
they reveal the man quite as well as the 
more formal and better known writings. 
His first sight of the Alhambra is given in 
a letter to Mademoiselle Bollviller : — 

" Our journey through La Mancha was cold 
and uninteresting, excepting when we passed 
through the scenes of some of the exploits of 
Don Quixote. We were repaid, however, by a 
night amidst the scenery of the Sierra Morena, 
seen by the light of the full moon. I do not 
know how this scenery would appear in the day- 



IN SPAIN. 147 

time, but by moonlight it is wonderfully wild and 
romantic, especially after passing the summit of 
the Sierra. As the day dawned we entered the 
stern and savage defiles of the Despena Perros, 
which equals the wild landscapes of Salvator 
Rosa. For some time we continued winding 
along the brinks of precipices, overhung with 
cragged and fantastic rocks ; and after a succes- 
sion of such rude and sterile scenes we swept 
down to Carolina, and found ourselves in an- 
other climate. The orange-trees, the aloes, and 
myrtle began to make their appearance ; we felt 
the warm temperature of the sweet South, and 
began to breathe the balmy air of Andalusia. At 
Andujar we were delighted with the neatness 
and cleanliness of the houses, the patios planted 
with orange and citron trees, and refreshed by 
fountains. We passed a charming evening on the 
banks of the famous Guadalquivir, enjoying the 
mild, balmy air of a southern evening, and re- 
joicing in the certainty that we were at length in 
this land of promise. . . . 

" But Granada, helUssima Granada ! Think what 
must have been our delight when, after passing 
the famous bridge of Pinos, the scene of many a 
bloody encounter between Moor and Christian, 
and remarkable for having been the place where 
Columbus was overtaken by the messenger of 
Isabella, when about to abandon Spain in de- 



148 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

spair, we turned a promontory of the arid monnt- 
ains of Elvira, and Granada, with its towers, its 
Alhambra, and its snowy mountains, burst upon 
our sight! The evening sun shone gloriously 
upon its red towers as we approached it, and 
gave a mellow tone to the rich scenery of the 
vega. It was like the magic glow which poetry 
and romance have shed over this enchanting 
place. . . . 

"The more I contemplate these places, the 
more my admiration is awakened for the elegant 
habits and delicate taste of the Moorish mon- 
archs. The delicately ornamented walls ; the 
aromatic groves, mingling with the freshness and 
the enlivening sounds of fountains and rivers of 
water ; the retired baths, bespeaking purity and 
refinement ; the balconies and galleries, open to 
the fresh mountain breeze, and overlooking the 
loveliest scenery of the valley of the Darro and 
the magnificent expanse of the vega, — it is impos- 
sible to contemplate this delicious abode and not 
feel an admiration of the genius and the poetical 
spirit of those who first devised this earthly para- 
dise. There is an intoxication of heart and soul 
in looking over such scenery at this genial sea- 
son. All nature is just teeming with new life, 
and putting on the first delicate verdure and 
bloom of spring. The almond - trees are in 
blossom ; the fig-trees are beginning to sprout ; 



IN SPAIN. 149 

everything is in the tender bud, the youog leaf, 
or the half-open flower. The beauty of the sea- 
son is but half developed, so that while there is 
enough to yield present delight there is the flat- 
tering promise of still further enjoyment. Good 
heavens ! after passing two years amidst the sun- 
burnt wastes of Castile, to be let loose to rove at 
large over this fragrant and lovely land ! " 

It was not easy, however, even in the 
Alhambra, perfectly to call up the past : — 

" The verity of the present checks and chills 
the imagination in its picturings of the past. I 
have been trying to conjure up images of Boabdil 
passing in regal splendor through these courts ; 
of his beautiful queen ; of the Abencerrages, the 
Gomares, and the other Moorish cavaliers, who 
once filled these halls with the glitter of arms 
and the splendor of Oriental luxury ; but I am 
continually awakened from my reveries by the 
jargon of an Andalusian peasant who is setting 
out rose-bushes, and the song of a pretty Anda- 
lusian girl who shows the Alhambra, and who is 
chanting a little romance that has probably been 
handed down from generation to generation since 
the time of the Moors." 

In another letter, written from Seville, 
he returns to the subject of the Moors. 



150 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

He is describing an excursion to Alcala de la 
Guadayra : — 

"Nothing can be more charming than the 
windings of the little river among banks hang- 
ing with gardens and orchards of all kinds of 
delicate southern fruits, and tufted with flowers 
and aromatic plants. The nightingales throng 
this lovely little valley as numerously as they do 
the gardens of Aranjuez. Every bend of the 
river presents a new landscape, for it is beset 
by old Moorish mills of the most picturesque 
forms, each mill having an embattled tower, — a 
memento of the valiant tenure by which those 
gallant fellows, the Moors, held this earthly par- 
adise, having to be ready at all times for war, 
and as it were to work with one hand and fight 
with the other. It is impossible to travel about 
Andalusia and not imbibe a kind feeling for 
those Moors. They deserved this beautiful coun- 
try. They won it bravely ; they enjoyed it gen- 
erously and kindly. No lover ever delighted 
more to cherish and adorn a mistress, to heighten 
and illustrate her charms, and to vindicate and 
defend her against all the world than did the 
Moors to embellish, enrich, elevate, and defend 
their beloved Spain. Everywhere I meet traces 
of their sagacity, courage, urbanity, high poetical 
feeling, and elegant taste. The noblest institu- 



IN SPAIN. 151 

tions in this part of Spain, the best inventions 
for comfortable and agreeable living, and all 
those habitudes and customs which throw a pe- 
culiar and Oriental charm over the Andalusian 
mode of living may be traced to the Moors. 
"Whenever I enter these beautiful marble patios, 
set out with shrubs and flowers, refreshed by 
fountains, sheltered with awnings from the sun ; 
where the air is cool at noonday, the ear de- 
lighted in sultry summer by the sound of falling 
water ; where, in a word, a little paradise is shut 
up within the walls of home, I think on the poor 
Moors, the inventors of all these delights. I am 
at times almost ready to join in sentiment with 
a worthy friend and countryman of mine whom 
I met in Malaga, who swears the Moors are the 
only people that ever deserved the country, and 
prays to Heaven that they may come over from 
Africa and conquer it again." 

In a following paragraph we get a glimpse 
of a world, however, that the author loves 
still more : — 

" Tell me everything about the children. I 
suppose the discreet princess will soon consider 
it an indignity to be ranked among the num- 
ber. I am told she is growing with might and 
main, and is determined not to stop until she is a 
woman outright. I would give all the money 



152 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

in my pocket to be with those dear little women 
at the round table in the saloon, or on the grass- 
plot in the garden, to tell them some marvelous 
tales." 

And again : — 

" Give my love to all my dear little friends 
of the round table, from the discreet princess 
down to the little blue-eyed boy. Tell la pe- 
tite Marie that I still remain true to her, though 
surrounded by all the beauties of Seville ; and 
that I swear (but this she must keep between 
ourselves) that there is not a little woman to 
compare with her in all Andalusia." 

The publication of " The Life of Colum- 
bus," which had been delayed by Irving's 
anxiety to secure historical accuracy in every 
detail, did not take place till February, 1828. 
For the English copyright Mr. Murray paid 
him <£3,150. He wrote an abridgment of 
it, which he presented to his generous pub- 
lisher, and which was a very profitable book 
(the first edition of ten thousand copies sold 
immediately). This was followed by the 
" Companions," and by " The Chronicle of 
the Conquest of Granada," for which he re- 
ceived two thousand guineas. " The Alham- 
bra" was not published till just before 



IN SPAIN. 153 

Irving's return to America, in 1832, and was 
brought out by Mr. Bentley, wbo bought it 
for one thousand guineas. 

" The Conquest of Granada," which I am 
told Irving in his latter years regarded as 
the best of all his works, was declared by 
Coleridge " a chef-cT oeuvre of its kind." I 
think it bears re-reading as well as any of 
the Spanish books. Of the reception of the 
"Columbus" the author was very doubtful. 
Before it was finished he wrote : — 

" I have lost confidence in the favorable dis- 
position of my countrymen, and look forward to 
cold scrutiny and stern criticism, and this is a 
line of writing in which I have not hitherto as- 
certained my own powers. Could I afford it, I 
should like to write, and to lay my writings aside 
when finished. There is an independent delight 
in study and in the creative exercise of the pen ; 
we live in a world of dreams, but publication lets 
in the noisy rabble of the world, and there is an 
end of our dreaming." 

In a letter to Brevoort, February, 23, 1828, 
he fears that he can never regain 

" That delightful confidence which I once en- 
joyed of not the good opinion, but the good will, 
of my countrymen. To me it is always ten times 



154 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

more gratifying to be liked than to be admired ; 
and I confess to you, though I am a little too 
proud to confess it to the world, the idea that the 
kindness of my countrymen toward me was with- 
ering caused me for a long time the most weary- 
depression of spirits, and disheartened me from 
making any literary exertions." 

It has been a popular notion that Irving's 
career was uniformly one of ease. In this 
same letter he exclaims : " With all my 
exertions, I seem always to keep about up 
to my chin in troubled water, while the 
world, I suppose, thinks I am sailing smooth- 
ly, with wind and tide in my favor." 

In a subsequent letter to Brevoort, dated 
at ^ville, December 26, 1828, occurs al- 
most the only piece of impatience and sar- 
casm that this long correspondence affords. 
" Columbus " had succeeded beyond his ex- 
pectation, and its popularity was so great 
that some enterprising American had pro- 
jected an abridgment, which it seems would 
not be protected by the copyright of the 
original. Irving writes : — 

" I have just sent to my brother an abridgment 
of * Columbus ' to be published immediately, as I 
find some paltry fellow is pirating an abridg- 



IN SPAIN. 155 

ment. Thus every line of life has its depredation. 
* There be land rats and water rats, land pirates 
and water pirates, — I mean thieves,' as old Shy- 
lock says. I feel vexed at this shabby attempt 
to purloin this work from me, it having really 
cost me more toil and trouble than all my other 
productions, and being one that I trusted would 
keep me current with my countrymen ; but we 
are making rapid advances in literature in Amer- 
ica, and have already attained many of the lit- 
erary vices and diseases of the old countries of 
Europe. We swarm with reviewers, though we 
have scarce original works sufficient for them to 
alight and prey upon, and we closely imitate all 
the worst tricks of the trade and of the craft in 
England. Our literature, before long, will be 
like some of those premature and aspiring whip- 
sters, who become old men before they are young 
ones, and fancy they prove their manhood by 
their profligacy and their diseases.". 

But the work had an immediate, con- 
tinued, and deserved success. It was critic- 
ally contrasted with Robertson's account of 
Columbus, and it is open to the charge of 
too much rhetorical color here and there, 
and it is at times too diffuse ; but its sub- 
stantial accuracy is not questioned, and the 
glow of the narrative springs legitimately 



156 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

from the romance of the theme. Irving un- 
derstood, what our later historians have 
fully appreciated, the advantage of vivid 
individual portraiture in historical narra- 
tive. His conception of the character and 
mission of Columbus is largely outlined, but 
firmly and most carefully executed, and is 
one of the noblest in literature. . I cannot 
think it idealized, though it required a po- 
etic sensibility to enter into sympathy with 
the magnificent dreamer, who was regarded 
by his own generation as the fool of an 
idea. A more prosaic treatment would have 
utterly failed to represent that mind, which 
existed from boyhood in an ideal world, and, 
amid frustrated hopes, shattered plans, and 
ignoble returns for his sacrifices, could al- 
ways rebuild its glowing projects, and con- 
quer obloquy and death itself with immortal 
anticipations. 

Towards the close of his residence in 
Spain, Irving received unexpectedly the ap- 
pointment of Secretary of Legation to the 
Court of St. James, at which Louis McLane 
was American Minister ; and after some 
hesitation, and upon the urgency of his 
friends, he accepted it. He was in the 



IN SPAIN. 157 

thick of literary projects. One of these 
was the History of the Conquest of Mex- 
ico, which he afterwards surrendered to 
Mr. Prescott and another was the " Life of 
Washington," which was to wait many years 
for fulfillment. His natural diffidence and 
his reluctance to a routine life made him 
shrink from the diplomatic appointment ; 
but once engaged in it, and launched again 
in London society, he was reconciled to the 
situation. Of honors there was no lack, 
nor of the adulation of social and literary 
circles. In April, 1830, the Royal Society 
of Literature awarded him one of the two 
annual gold medals placed at the disposal 
of the society by George IV., to be given to 
authors of literary works of eminent merit, 
the other being voted to the historian Hal- 
lam; and this distinction was followed by 
the degree of D. C. L. from the University 
of Oxford, — a title which the modest au- 
thor never used. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

EETITEN TO AMEKICA : SUNNYSIDE : THE 
MISSION TO MADKID. 

In 1831 Mr. Irving was thrown, by his 
diplomatic position, into the thick of the 
political and social tumult, when the Re- 
form Bill was pending and war was ex- 
pected in Europe. It is interesting to note 
that for a time he laid aside his attitude of 
the dispassionate observer, and caught the 
general excitement. He writes in March, 
expecting that the fate of the cabinet will 
be determined in a week, looking daily for 
decisive news from Paris, and fearing dis- 
mal tidings from Poland. "However," he 
goes on to say in a vague way, " the great 
cause of all the world will go on. What a 
stirring moment it is to live in ! I never 
took such intense interest in newspapers. 
It seems to me as if life were breaking out 
anew with me, or that I were entering upon 
quite a new and almost unknown career of 



RETURN TO AMERICA. 159 

existence, and I rejoice to find my sensibili- 
ties, which were waning as to many objects 
of past interest, reviving with all their 
freshness and vivacity at the scenes and 
prospects opening around me." He expects 
the breaking of the thralldom of falsehood 
woven over the human mind ; and, more 
definitely, hopes that the Reform Bill will 
prevail. Yet he is oppressed by the gloom 
hanging over the booksellers' trade, which 
bethinks will continue until reform and chol- 
era have passed away. 

During the last months of his residence in 
England, the author renewed his impres- 
sions of Stratford (the grateful landlady of 
the Red Horse Inn showed him a poker 
which was locked up among the treasures of 
her house, on which she had caused to be 
engraved " Geofi'rey Crayon's Sceptre ") ; 
spent some time at Newstead Abbey ; and 
had the sorrowful pleasure in London of see- 
ing Scott once more, and for the last time. 
The great novelist, in the sad eclipse of his 
powers, was staying in the city, on his way 
to Italy, and Mr. Lockhart asked Irving to 
dine with him. It was but a melancholy 
repast. " Ah," said Scott, as Irving gave 



160 WASJflNGTON IRVING. 

him his arm, after dinner, " the times are 
changed, my good fellow, since we went 
over the Eildon Hills together. It is all 
nonsense to tell a man that his mind is not 
affected when his body is in this state." 

Irving retired from the legation in Sep- 
tember, 1831, to return home, the longing 
to see his native land having become in- 
tense ; but his arrival in New York was 
delayed till May, 1832. 

If he had any doubts of the sentiments of 
his countrymen toward him, his reception 
in New York dissipated them. America 
greeted her most famous literary man with 
a spontaneous outburst of love and admira- 
tion. V The public banquet in New York, 
that was long remembered for its brilliancy, 
was followed by the tender of the same 
tribute in other cities, — an honor which his 
unconquerable shrinking from this kind of 
publicity compelled him to decline. The 
"Dutch Herodotus, Diedrich Knickerbock- 
er," to use the phrase of a toast, having come 
out of one such encounter with fair credit, 
did not care to tempt Providence further. 
The thought of making a dinner-table 
speech threw him into a sort of whimsical 



RETURN TO AMERICA. 161 

panic, — a noble infirmity, which character- 
ized also Hawthorne and Thackeray. 

The enthusiasm manifested for the home- 
sick author was equaled by his own for the 
land and the people he supremely loved. 
Nor was his surprise at the progress made 
during seventeen years less than his delight 
in it. His native place had become a city 
of two hundred thousand inhabitants ; the 
accumulation of wealth and the activity of 
trade astonished him, and the literary stir 
was scarcely less unexpected. The steam- 
boat had come to be used, so that he seemed 
to be transported from place to place by 
magic ; and on a near view the politics of 
America seemed not less interesting than 
those of Europe. The nullification battle 
was set ; the currency conflict still raged ; 
it was a time of inflation and land specula- 
tion ; the West, every day more explored 
and opened, was the land of promise for 
capital and energy. Fortunes were made 
in a day by buying lots in " paper towns." 
Into some of these speculations Irving put 
his savings ; the investments were as per- 
manent as they were unremunerative. 

living's first desire, however, on his re- 
11 



162 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

covery from the state of astonishment into 
which these changes plunged him, was to 
make himself thoroughly acquainted with 
the entire country and its development. To 
this end he made an extended tour in the 
South and West, which passed beyond the 
bounds of frontier settlement. The fruit of 
his excursion into the Pawnee country, on 
the waters of the Arkansas, a region un- 
traversed by white men, except solitary 
trappers, was " A Tour on the Prairies," a 
sort of romance of reality, which remains 
to-day as good a description as we have of 
hunting adventure on the plains. It led 
also to the composition of other books on 
the West, which were more or less mere 
pieces of book-making for the market. 

Our author was far from idle. Indeed, he 
could not afford to be. Although he had 
received considerable sums from his books, 
and perhaps enough for his own simple 
wants, the responsibility of the support of 
his two brothers, Peter and Ebenezer, and 
several nieces, devolved upon him. And, 
besides, he had a longing to make himself a 
home, where he could pursue his calling un- 
disturbed, and indulge the sweets of domes- 



RETURN TO AMERICA. 163 

tic and rural life, which of all things lay- 
nearest his heart. And these two under- 
takings compelled him to be diligent with 
his pen to the end of his life. The spot he 
chose for his " Roost " was a little farm on 
the bank of the river at Tarry town, close 
to his old Sleepy Hollow haunt, one of the 
loveliest, if not the most picturesque, situa- 
tions on the Hudson. At first he intended 
nothing more than a summer retreat, inex- 
pensive and simply furnished. But his ex- 
perience was that of all who buy, and reno- 
vate, and build. The farm had on it a 
small stone Dutch cottage, built about a 
century before, and inhabited by one of the 
Van Tassels. This was enlarged, still pre- 
serving the quaint Dutch characteristics ; it 
acquired a tower and a whimsical weather- 
cock, the delight of the owner (" it was 
brought from Holland by Gill Davis, the 
King of Coney Island, who says he got it 
from a windmill which they were demolish- 
ing at the gate of Rotterdam, which wind- 
mill has been mentioned in ' Knickerbock- 
er ' "), and became one of the most snug 
and picturesque residences on the river. 
When the slip of Melrose ivy, which was 



164 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

brought over from Scotland by Mrs. Ren- 
wick and given to the author, had grown 
and well overrun it, the house, in the midst 
of sheltering groves and secluded walks, was 
as pretty a retreat as a poet could desire. 
But the little nook proved to have an insa- 
tiable capacity for swallowing up money, as 
the necessities of the author's establishment 
increased : there was always something to 
be done to the grounds ; some alterations in 
the house ; a green-house, a stable, a gar- 
dener's cottage, to be built, — and to the 
very end the outlay continued. The cottage 
necessitated economy in other personal ex- 
penses, and incessant employment of his pen. 
But Sunnyside, as the place was named, be- 
came the dearest spot on earth to him ; it 
was his residence, from which he tore himself 
with reluctance, and to which he returned 
with eager longing ; and here, surrounded by 
relatives whom he loved, he passed nearly all 
the remainder of his years, in as happy con- 
ditions, I think, as a bachelor ever enjoyed. 
His intellectual activity was unremitting, 
he had no lack of friends, there was only 
now and then a discordant note in the gen- 
eral estimation of his literary work, and he 



SUNNYSIDE. 165 

was the object of the most tender care from 
his nieces. Already, he writes, in October, 
1838, " my little cottage is well stocked. 
I have Ebenezer's five girls, and himself 
also, whenever he can be spared from town ; 
sister Catherine and her daughter; Mr. 
Davis occasionally, with casual visits from 
all the rest of our family connection. The 
cottage, therefore, is never lonely." I like 
to dwell in thought upon this happy home, 
a real haven of rest after many wanderings ; 
a seclusion broken only now and then by 
enforced absence, like that in Madrid as 
minister, but enlivened by many welcome 
guests. Perhaps the most notorious of these 
was a young Frenchman, a "somewhat quiet 
guest," who, after several months' imprison- 
ment on board a French man-of-war, was 
set on shore at Norfolk, and spent a couple 
of months in New York and its vicinity, in 
1837. This visit was vividly recalled to Ir- 
ving in a letter to his sister, Mrs. Storrow, 
who was in Paris in 1853, and had just 
been presented at court : — 

'- Louis Napoleon and Eugenie Monti jo, Em- 
peror and Empress of France ! one of whom I 
have had a guest at my cottage on the Hudson ; 



166 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the other, whom, when a child, I have had on 
my knee at Granada. It seems to cap the cli- 
max of the strange dramas of which Paris has 
been the theatre during my life-time. I have re- 
peatedly thought that each grand coup de theatre 
would be the last that would occur in my time ; 
but each has been succeeded by another equally 
striking; and what will be the next, who can 
conjecture ? 

" The last time I saw Eugenie Montijo she was 
one of the reigning belles of Madrid ; and she 
and her giddy circle had swept away my charm- 
ing young friend, the beautiful and accomplished 
, into their career of fashionable dis- 
sipation. Now Eugenie is upon a throne, and 

a voluntary recluse in a convent of one of 

the most rigorous orders ! Poor ! Per- 
haps, however, her fate may ultimately be the 
happiest of the two. * The storm ' with her ' is 
o'er, and she 's at rest ; ' but the other is launched 
upon a returnless shore, on a dangerous sea, in- 
famous for its tremendous shipwrecks. Am I to 
live to see the catastrophe of her career, and the 
end of this suddenly conjured-up empire, which 
seems to be of ' such stuff as dreams are made 
of?" 

As we have seen, the large sums Irving 
earned, by his pen were not spent in selfish 



SUNNY SIDE. 167 

indulgence. His habits and tastes were 
simple, and little would have sufficed for 
his individual needs. He cared not much 
for money, and seemed to want it only to 
increase the happiness of those who were con- 
fided to his care. A man less warm-hearted 
and more selfish, in his circumstances, would 
have settled down to a life of more ease and 
less responsibility. 

To go back to the period of his return to 
America. He was now past middle life, 
having returned to New York in his fiftieth 
year. But he was in the full flow of lit- 
erary productiveness. I have noted the dates 
of his achievements, because his develop- 
ment was somewhat tardy compared with 
that of many of his contemporaries ; but 
he had the " staying " qualities. The first 
crop of his mind was of course the most 
original ; time and experience had toned 
down his exuberant humor ; but the spring 
of his fancy was as free, his vigor was not 
abated, and his art was more refined. 
Some of his best work was yet to be done. 
And it is worthy of passing mention, in re- 
gard to his later productions, that his ad- 
mirable sense of literary proportion, which 



168 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

is wanting in many good writers, character- 
ized his work to the end. 

High as his position was as a man of let- 
ters at this time, the consideration in which 
he was held was much broader than that, — 
it was that of one of the first citizens of the 
Republic. His friends, readers, and admir- 
ers were not merely the literary class and the 
general public, but included nearly all the 
prominent statesmen of the time. Almost 
any career in public life would have been 
open to him if he had lent an ear to their 
solicitations. But political life was not to 
his taste, and it would have been fatal to his 
sensitive spirit. It did not require much 
self-denial, perhaps, to decline the candi- 
dacy for mayor of New York, or the honor 
of standing for Congress ; but he put aside 
also the distinction of a seat in Mr. Van 
Buren's Cabinet as Secretary of the Navy. 
His main reason for declining it, aside from 
a diffidence in his own judgment in public 
matters, was his dislike of the turmoil of 
political life in Washington, and his sensi- 
tiveness to personal attacks which beset the 
occupants of high offices. But he also had 
come to a political divergence with Mr. 



SUNNYSIDE. 169 

Van Buren. He liked the man, — lie liked 
almost everybody, — and esteemed him as a 
friend, but he apprehended trouble from the 
new direction of the party in power. Ir- 
ving was almost devoid of party prejudice, 
and he never seemed to have strongly 
marked political opinions. Perhaps his 
nearest confession to a creed is contained in 
a letter he wrote to a member of the House 
of Representatives, Gouverneur Kemble, a 
little time before the offer of a position in 
the cabinet, in which he said that he did 
not relish some points of Van Buren's pol- 
icy, nor believe in the honesty of some of 
his elbow counselors. I quote a passage 
from it : — 

" As far as I know my own mind, I am thor- 
oughly a republican, and attached, from complete 
conviction, to the institutions of my country; 
but I am a republican without gall, and have no 
bitterness in my creed. I have no relish for Pu- 
ritans, either in religion or politics, who are for 
pushing principles to an extreme, and for over- 
turning everything that stands in the way of 
their own zealous career. . . . Ours is a govern- 
ment of compromise. We have several great 
and distinct interests bound up together, which, 



170 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

if not separately consulted and severally accom- 
modated, may harass and impair each other. 
... I always distrust the soundness of political 
councils that are accompanied by acrimonious 
and disparaging attacks upon any great class of 
our fellow-citizens. Such are those urged to the 
disadvantage of the great trading and financial 
classes of our country." 

During the ten years preceding his mis- 
sion to Spain, Irving kept fagging away at 
the pen, doing a good deal of miscellaneous 
and ephemeral work. Among his other en- 
gagements was that of regular contributor 
to the "Knickerbocker Magazine," for a sal- 
ary of two thousand dollars. - He wrote the 
editor that he had observed that man, as he 
advances in life, is subject to a plethora of 
the mind, occasioned by an accumulation of 
wisdom upon the brain, and that he be- 
comes fond of telling long stories and doling 
out advice, to the annoyance of his friends. 
To avoid becoming the bore of the domes- 
tic circle, he proposed to ease off this sur- 
charge of the intellect by inflicting his te- 
diousness on the public through the pages of 
the periodical. The arrangement brought 
reputation to the magazine (whicb was pub- 



SUNNYSIDE. 171 

lished in the days when the honor of being 
in print was supposed by the publisher to 
be ample compensation to the scribe), but 
little profit to Mr. Irving. Daring this 
period he interested himself in an interna- 
tional copyright, as a means of fostering our 
young literature. He found that a work of 
merit, written by an American who had not 
established a commanding name in the mar- 
ket, met very cavalier treatment from our 
publishers, who frankly said that they need 
not trouble themselves about native works, 
when they could pick up every day success- 
ful books from the British press, for which 
they had to pay no copyright. Irving's ad- 
vocacy of the proposed law was entirely un- 
selfish, for his own market was secure. 

His chief works in these ten years were, 
" A Tour on the Prairies," " Recollections 
of Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey," " The 
Legends of the Conquest of Spain," ''Asto- 
ria" (the heavy part of the work of it 
was done by his nephew Pierre), " Captain 
Bonneville," and a number of graceful oc- 
casional papers, collected afterwards under 
the title of '' Wolfert's Roost." Two other 
books may properly be mentioned here, al- 



172 • WASHINGTON IRVING. 

though they did not appear until after his 
return from his absence of four years and a 
half at the court of Madrid ; these are the 
" Biography of Goldsmith " and " Mahomet 
and his Successors." At the age of sixty- 
six, he laid aside the "Life of Washing- 
ton," on which he was engaged, and rapidly 
" threw off " these two books. The '' Gold- 
smith " was enlarged from a sketch he had 
made twenty-five years before. It is an ex- 
quisite, sympathetic piece of work, without 
pretension or any subtle verbal analysis, 
but on the whole an excellent interpreta- 
tion of the character. Author and subject 
had much in common : Irving had at least 
a kindly sympathy for the vagabondish in- 
clinations of his predecessor, and with his 
humorous and cheerful regard of the world ; 
perhaps it is significant of a deeper unity in 
character that both, at times, fancied they 
could please an intolerant world by attempt- 
ing to play the flute. The " Mahomet " is 
a popular narrative, which throws no new 
light on the subject ; it is pervaded by the 
author's charm of style and equity of judg- 
ment, but it lacks the virility of Gibbon's 
masterly picture of the Arabian prophet and 
the Saracenic onset. 



SUNNYSIBE. 173 

We need not dwell longer upon this pe- 
riod. One incident of it, however, cannot 
be passed in silence : that was the abandon- 
ment of his life-long project of writing the 
History of the Conquest of Mexico to Mr. 
William H. Prescott. It had been a scheme 
of his boyhood ; he had made collections of 
materials for it during his first residence 
in Spain; and he was actually and absorb- 
edly engaged in the composition of the first 
chapters, when he was sounded by Mr. Cogs- 
well, of the Astor Library, in behalf of Mr. 
Prescott. Some conversation showed that 
Mr. Prescott was contemplating the subject 
upon which Mr. Irving was engaged, and 
the latter instantly authorized Mr. Cogswell 
to say that he abandoned it. Although our 
author was somewhat far advanced, and Mr. 
Prescott had not yet collected his materials, 
Irving renounced the glorious theme in such 
a manner that Prescott never suspected the 
pain and loss it cost him, nor the full extent 
of his own obligation. Some years after- 
wards Irving wrote to his nephew that in 
giving it up he in a manner gave up his 
bread, as he had no other subject to supply 
its place : "I was," he wrote, "dismounted 



174 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

from my cheval de hataille^ and have never 
been completely mounted since." But he 
added that he was not sorry for the warm 
impulse that induced him to abandon the 
subject, and that Mr. Prescott's treatment 
of it had justified his opinion of him. Not- 
withstanding Prescott's very brilliant work, 
we cannot but feel some regret that Irving 
did not write a Conquest of Mexico. His 
method, as he outlined it, would have been 
the natural one. Instead of partially satis- 
fying the reader's curiosity in a preliminary 
essay, in which the Aztec civilization was 
exposed, Irving would have begun with the 
entry of the conquerors, and carried his 
reader step by step onward, letting him 
share all the excitement and surprise of dis- 
covery which the invaders experienced, and 
learn of the wonders of the country in the 
manner most likely to impress both the im- 
agination and the memory ; and with his 
artistic sense of the value of the picturesque 
he would have brought into strong relief the 
dramatis personce of the story. 

In 1842, Irving was tendered the honor 
of the mission to Madrid. It was an entire 
surprise to himself and to his friends. He 



MISSION TO MADRID. 175 

came to look upon this as the " crowning 
honor of his life," and yet when the news 
first reached him he paced up and down 
his room, excited and astonished, revolving 
in his mind the separation from home and 
friends, and was heard murmuring, half to 
himself and half to his nephew, " It is hard, 
— very hard ; yet I must try to bear it. 
God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." 
His acceptance of the position was doubt- 
less influenced by the intended honor to 
his profession, by the gratifying manner 
in which it came to him, by his desire to 
please his friends, and the belief, which was 
a delusion, that diplomatic life in Madrid 
would offer no serious interruption to his 
" Life of Washington," in which he had just 
become engaged. The nomination, the sug- 
gestion of Daniel Webster, Tyler's Secre- 
tary of State, was cordially approved by the 
President and cabinet, and confirmed almost 
by acclamation in the Senate. " Ah," said 
Mr. Clay, who was opposing nearly all the 
President's appointments, "this is a nomi- 
nation everybody will concur in ! " " If a 
person of more merit and higher qualifica- 
tion," wrote Mr. Webster in his official no- 



176 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

tification, " had presented himself, great as 
is my personal regard for you, I should have 
yielded it to higher considerations." No 
other appointment could have been made so 
complimentary to Spain, and it remains to 
this day one of the most honorable to his 
own country. 

In reading Irving's letters written during 
his third visit abroad, you are conscious 
that the glamour of life is gone for him, 
though not his kindliness towards the world, 
and that he is subject to few illusions ; the 
show and pageantry no longer enchant, — 
they only weary. The novelty was gone, 
and he was no longer curious to see great 
sights and great people. He had declined a 
public dinner in New York, and he put aside 
the same hospitality offered by Liverpool 
and by Glasgow. In London he attended 
the Queen's grand fancy ball, which sur- 
passed anything he had seen in splendor 
and picturesque effect. " The personage," 
he writes, " who appeared least to enjoy the 
scene seemed to me to be the little Queen 
herself. She was flushed and heated, and 
evidently fatigued and oppressed with the 
state she had to keep up and the regal robes 



MISSION TO MADRID. 177 

in whicli she was arrayed, and especially by 
a crown of gold, which weighed heavy on 
her brow, and to which she was continually 
raising her hand to move it slightly when ifc 
pressed. I hope and trust her real crown 
sits easier." The bearing of Prince Albert 
he found prepossessing, and he adds, " He 
speaks English very well ;" as if that were a 
useful accomplishment for an English Prince 
Consort. His reception at court and by 
the ministers and diplomatic corps was very 
kind, and he greatly enjoyed meeting his 
old friends, Leslie, Rogers, and Moore. At 
Paris, in an informal presentation to the 
royal family, he experienced a very cordial 
welcome from the King and Queen and 
Madame Adelaide, each of whom took occa- 
sion to say something complimentary about 
his writings ; but he escaped as soon as pos- 
sible from social engagements. " Amidst 
all the splendors of London and Paris, I find 
my imagination refuses to take fire, and my 
heart still yearns after dear little Sunny- 
side." Of an anxious friend in Paris, who 
thought Irving was ruining his prospects by 
neglecting to leave his card with this or 
that duchess who had sought his acquaiut- 

12 



178 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ance, he writes : " He attributes all this to 
very excessive modesty, not dreaming that 
the empty intercourse of saloons with people 
of rank and fashion could be a bore to one 
who has run the rounds of society for the 
greater part of half a century, and who likes 
to consult his own humor and pursuits." 

When Irving reached Madrid the affairs 
of the kingdom had assumed a powerful 
dramatic interest, wanting in none of the 
romantic elements that characterize the 
whole history of the peninsula. " The fut- 
ure career [he writes] of this gallant sol- 
dier, Espartero, whose merits and services 
have placed him at the head of the govern- 
ment, and the future fortunes of these iso- 
lated little princesses, the Queen and her 
sister, have an uncertainty hanging about 
them worthy of the fifth act in a melo- 
drama." The drama continued, with con- 
stant shifting of scene, as long as Irving re- 
mained in Spain, and gave to his diplomatic 
life intense interest, and at times perilous 
excitement. His letters are full of animated 
pictures of the changing progress of the 
play ; and although they belong rather to the 
gossip of history than to literary biography, 



MISSION TO MADRID. 179 

they cannot be altogether omitted. The 
duties which the minister had to perform 
were unusual, delicate, and difficult ; but I 
believe he acquitted himself of them with the 
skill of a born diplomatist. When he went 
to Spain before, in 1826, Ferdinand VII. 
was, by aid of French troops, on the throne, 
the liberties of the kingdom were crushed, 
and her most enlightened men were in exile. 
While he still resided there, in 1829, Fer- 
dinand married, for his fourth wife, Maria 
Christina, sister of the King of Naples, and 
niece of the Queen of Louis Philippe. By 
her he had two daughters, his only chil- 
dren. In order that his own progen}^ might 
succeed him, he set aside the Salique law 
(which had been imposed by France) just 
before his death, in 1833, and revived the 
old Spanish law of succession. His eldest 
daughter, then three years old, was pro- 
claimed Queen, by the name of Isabella IL, 
and her mother guardian during her minor- 
ity, which would end at the age of fourteen. 
Don Carlos, the king's eldest brother, im- 
mediately set up the standard of rebellion, 
supported by the absolutist aristocracy, the 
monks, and a great part of the clergy. The 



\ 



180 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

liberals rallied to the Queen. The Queen 
Regent did not, however, act in good faith 
with the popular party : she resisted all 
salutary reform, would not restore the Con- 
stitution of 1812 until compelled to by a 
popular uprising, and disgraced herself by 
a scandalous connection with one Muiios, 
one of the royal body guards. She enriched 
this favorite and amassed a vast fortune for 
herself, which she sent out of the country. 
In 1839, when Don Carlos was driven out 
of the country by the patriot soldier Es- 
partero, she endeavored to gain him over to 
her side, but failed. Espartero became Re- 
gent, and Maria Christina repaired to Paris, 
where she was received with great distinc- 
tion by Louis Philippe, and Paris became 
the focus of all sorts of machinations against 
the constitutional government of Spain, and 
of plots for its overthrow. One of these 
had just been defeated at the time of Ir- 
ving's arrival. It was a desperate attempt 
of a band of soldiers of the rebel army to 
carry off the little Queen and her sister, 
which was frustrated only by the gallant 
resistance of the halberdiers in the palace. 
The little princesses had scarcely recovered 



MISSION TO MADRID. 181 

from the horror of this night attack when 
our minister presented his credentials to 
the Queen through the Regent, thus break- 
ing a diplomatic dead-lock, in which he was 
followed by all the other embassies -except 
the French. I take some passages from the 
author's description of his first audience at 
the royal palace : — 

*' We passed through the spacious court, up the 
noble staircase, and through the long suites of 
apartments of this splendid edifice, most of them 
silent and vacant, the casements closed to keep 
out the heat, so that a twilight reigned through- 
out the mighty pile, not a little emblematical of 
the dubious fortunes of its inmates. It seemed 
more like traversing a convent than a palace. I 
ought to have mentioned that in ascending the 
grand staircase we found the portal at the head 
of it, opening into the royal suite of apartments, 
still bearing the marks of the midnight attack 
upon the palace in October last, when an at- 
tempt was made to get possession of the persons 
of the little Queen and her sister, to carry them 
off. . . . The marble casements of the doors had 
been shattered in several places, and the double 
doors themselves pierced all over with bullet holes, 
from the musketry that played upon them from 
the staircase during that eventful night. What 



182 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

must have been the feelings of those poor chil- 
dren, on listening, from their apartment, to the 
horrid tumult, the outcries of a furious multitude, 
and the reports of fire-arms echoing and re- 
verberating through the vaulted halls and spa- 
cious courts of this immense edifice, and dubious 
whether their own lives were not the object of 
the assault ! 

" After passing through various chambers of 
the palace, now silent and sombre, but which I 
had traversed in former days, on grand court oc- 
casions in the time of Ferdinand VII., when they 
were glittering with all the splendor of a court, 
we paused in a great saloon, with high-vaulted 
ceiling incrusted with fiorid devices in porcelain, 
and hung with silken tapestry, but all in dim 
twilight, like the rest of the palace. At one end 
of the saloon the door opened to an almost inter- 
minable range of other chambers, through which, 
at a distance, we had a glimpse of some mdis- 
tinct figures in black. They glided into the 
saloon slowly, and with noiseless steps. It was 
the little Queen, with her governess, Madame 
Mina, widow of the general of that name, and 
her guardian, the excellent Arguelles, all in deep 
mourning for the Duke of Orleans. The little 
Queen advanced some steps within the saloon and 
then paused. Madame Mina took her station 
a little distance behind her. The Count Almo- 



MISSION TO MADRID. 183 

dovar then introduced me to the Queen in my 
official capacity, and she received me with a 
grave and quiet welcome, expressed in a very 
low voice. She is nearly twelve years of age, 
and is sufficiently well grown for her years. She 
had a somewhat fair complexion, quite pale, with 
bluish or light gray eyes ; a grave demeanor, 
but a graceful deportment. I could not but re- 
gard her with deep interest, knowing what im- 
portant concerns depended upon the life of this 
fragile little being, and to what a stormy and 
precarious career she might be destined. Her 
solitary position, also, separated from all her 
kindred except her little sister, a mere effigy of 
royalty in the hands of statesmen, and surrounded 
by the formalities and ceremonials of state, 
which spread sterility around the occupant of a 
throne." 

I have quoted this passage not more on 
account of its intrinsic interest, than as a 
specimen of the author's consummate art of 
conveying an impression by what I may call 
the tone of his style; and this appears in 
all his correspondence relating to this pict- 
uresque and eventful period. During the 
four years of his residence the country was 
in a constant state of excitement and often 
of panic. Armies were marching over the 



184 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

kingdom. Madrid was in a state of siege, 
expecting an assault at one time ; confusion 
reigned amid the changing adherents about 
the person of the child Queen. The duties 
of a minister were perplexing enough, when 
the Spanish government was changing its 
character and its personnel with the rapidity 
of shifting scenes in a pantomime. *' This 
consumption of ministers," wrote Irving to 
Mr. Webster, " is appalling. To carry on 
a negotiation with such transient function- 
aries is like bargaining at the window of 
a railroad car : before you can get a reply 
to a proposition the other party is out of 
sight." 

Apart from politics, Irving's residence 
was full of half-melancholy recollections 
and associations. In a letter to his old 
comrade Prince Dolgorouki, then Russian 
Minister at Naples, he recalls the days of 
their delightful intercourse at the D'Ou- 
brils : — 

" Time dispels charms and illusions. Yon re- 
member how much I was struck with a beautiful 
young woman (1 will not mention names) who 
appeared in a tableau as Murillo's Virgin of the 
Assumption ? She was young, recently married, 



MISSION TO MADRID. 185 

fresh and unhackneyed in society, and my im- 
agination decked her out with everything that 
was pure, lovely, innocent, and angelic in wom- 
anhood. She was pointed out to me in the 
theatre shortly after my arrival in IMadrid. I 
turned with eagerness to the original of the 
picture that had ever remained hung up in sanc- 
tity in my mind. I found her still handsome, 
though somewhat matronly in appearance, seated, 
with her daughters^ in the box of a fashionable 
nobleman, younger than herself, rich in purse 
but poor in intellect, and who was openly and no- 
toriously her cavalier servante. The charm was 
broken, the picture fell from the wall. She may 
have the customs of a depraved country and licen- 
tious state of society to excuse her; but I can 
never think of her again in the halo of feminine 
purity and loveliness that surrounded the Virgin 
of Murillo." 

During Irving's ministry he was twice 
absent, briefly in Paris and London, and was 
called to the latter place for consultation in 
regard to the Oregon boundary dispute, in 
the settlement of which he rendered valu- 
able service. Space is not given me for 
further quotations from Irving's brilliant 
descriptions of court, characters, and society 
in that revolutionary time, nor of his half- 



186 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

melancholy pilgrimage to the southern scenes 
of his former reveries. But I will take a 
page from a letter to his sister, Mrs. Paris, 
describing his voyage from Barcelona to 
Marseilles, vrhich exhibits the lively sus- 
ceptibility of the author and diplomat who 
was then in his sixty-first year : — 

" While I am writing at a table in the cabin, I 
am sensible of the power of a pair of splendid 
Spanish eyes which are occasionally flashing upon 
me, and which almost seem to throw a light upon 
the paper. Since I cannot break the spell, I will 
describe the owner of them. She is a young 
married lady, about four or five and twenty, mid- 
dle sized, finely modeled, a Grecian outline of 
face, a complexion sallow yet healthful, raven 
black hair, eyes dark, large, and beaming, soft- 
ened by long eyelashes, lips full and rosy red, 
yet finely chiseled, and teeth of dazzling white- 
ness. She is dressed in black, as if in mourning ; 
on one hand is a black glove ; the other hand, 
ungloved, is small, exquisitely formed, with taper 
fingers and blue veins. She has just put it up 
to adjust her clustering black locks. I never saw 
female hand more exquisite. Really, if I were a 
young man, I should not be able to draw the por- 
trait of this beautiful creature so calmly. 

" I was interrupted in my letter writing, by an 



MISSION TO MADRID. 187 

observation of the lady whom I was describing. 
She had caught my eye occasionally, as it glanced 
from my letter toward her. ' Really, Senor,' 
said she, at length, with a smile, * one would think 
you were a painter taking my likeness.' I could 
not resist the impulse. ' Indeed,' said I, ' I am 
taking it ; I am writing to a friend the other side 
of the world, discussing things that are passing 
before me, and I could not help noting down one 
of the best specimens of the country that I had 
met with.' A little bantering took place between 
the young lady, her husband, and myself, which 
ended in my reading oif, as well as I could into 
Spanish, the description I had just written down. 
It occasioned a world of merriment, and was taken 
in excellent part. The lady's cheek, for once, 
mantled with the rose. She laughed, shook her 
head, and said I was a very fanciful portrait 
painter ; and the husband declared that, if I would 
stop at St. Filian, all the ladies in the place would 
crowd to have their portraits taken, — my pictures 
were so flattering. I have just parted with them. 
The steamship stopped in the open sea, just in 
front of the little bay of St. Filian ; boats came 
off from shore for the party. I helped the beau- 
tiful original of the portrait into the boat, and 
promised her and her husband if ever I should 
come to St. Filian I would pay them a visit. The 
last I noticed of her was a Spanish farewell wave 



1^8 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

of her beautiful white hand, and the gleam of her 
dazzling teeth as she smiled adieu. So there 's 
a very tolerable touch of romance for a gentle- 
man of my years." 

When Irving announced liis recall from 
the court of Madrid, the young Queen said 
to him in reply : " You may take with you 
into private life the intimate conviction that 
your frank and loyal conduct has contrib- 
uted to draw closer the amicable relations 
which exist between North America and the 
Spanish nation, and that your distinguished 
personal merits have gained in my heart 
the appreciation which you merit by more 
than one title." The author was anxious to 
return. From the midst of court life in 
April, 1845, he had written : "I long to be 
once more back at dear little Sunnyside, 
while I have yet strength and good spirits 
to enjoy the simple pleasures of the country, 
and to rally a happy family group once more 
about me. I grudge every year of absence 
that rolls by. To-morrow is my birthday. 
I shall then be sixty-two years old. The 
evening of life is fast drawing over me ; still 
I hope to get back among my friends while 
there is a little sunshine left.'* 



MISSION TO MADRID. 189 

It was the 19th of September, 1846, says 
his biographer, " when the impatient long- 
ing of his heart was gratified, and he found 
himself restored to his home for the thir- 
teen years of happy life still remaining to 
him." 



CHAPTER IX. 
THE CHAEACTEEISTIC WORKS. 

The Knickerbocker's " History of New 
York " and the " Sketch-Book " never would 
have won for Irving the gold medal of the 
Rojal Society of Literature, or the degree 
of b. C. L. from Oxford. 

However much the world would have 
liked frankly to honor the writer for that 
which it most enjoyed and was under most 
obligations for, it would have been a vio- 
lent shock to the constitution of things to 
have given such honor to the mere humor- 
ist and the writer of short sketches. The 
conventional literary proprieties must bo 
observed. Only some laborious, solid, and 
improving work of the pen could sanction 
such distinction, — a book of research or an 
historical composition. It need not neces- 
sarily be dull, but it must be grave in tone 
and serious in intention, in order to give 
the author high recognition. 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 191 

Irving himself shared this opinion. He 
hoped, in the composition of his " Colum- 
bus " and his " Washington," to produce 
works which should justify the good opinion 
his countrymen had formed of him, should 
reasonably satisfy the expectations excited 
by his lighter books, and lay for him the 
basis of enduring reputation. All that he 
had done before was the play of careless 
genius, the exercise of frolicsome fancy, 
which might amuse and perhaps win an af- 
fectionate regard for the author, but could 
not justify a high respect or secure a per- 
manent place in literature. For this, some 
work of scholarship and industry was 
needed. 

And yet everybody would probably have 
admitted that there was but one man then 
living who could have created and peopled 
the vast and humorous world of the Knicker- 
bockers ; that all the learning of Oxford and 
Cambridge together would not enable a man 
to draw the whimsical portrait of Ichabod 
Crane, or to outline the fascinating legend 
of Rip Van Winkle ; while Europe was full 
of sriiolars of more learning than Irving, 
r.-id writers of equal skill in narrative, who 



192 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

might have told the story of Columbus as 
well as he told it and perhaps better. The 
under-graduates of Oxford who hooted their 
admiration of the shy author when he ap- 
peared in the theatre to receive his com- 
plimentary degree perhaps understood this, 
and expressed it in their shouts of "Die- 
drich Knickerbocker," " Ichabod Crane," 
"Rip Van Winkle." 

Irving's "gift" was humor ; and allied to 
this was sentiment. These qualities mod- 
ified and restrained each other ; and it was 
by these that he touched the heart. He 
acquired other powers which he himself 
may have valued more highly, and which 
brought him more substantial honors ; but 
the historical compositions, which he and 
his contemporaries regarded as a solid basis 
of fame, could be spared without serious 
loss, while the works of humor, the first 
fruits of his genius, are possessions in Eng- 
lish literature the loss of which would be 
irreparable. The world may never openly 
allow to humor a position " above the salt," 
but it clings to its fresh and original produc- 
tions, generation after generation, finding 
room for them in its accumulating literary 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 193 

baggage, while more "important " tomes of 
scholarship and industry strew the line of 
its march. 

I feel that this study of Irving as a man 
of letters would be incomplete, especially 
for the young readers of this generation, if 
it did not contain some more extended cita- 
tions from those works upon which we have 
formed our estimate of his quality. Wo 
will take first a few passages from the " His- 
tory of New York." 

It has been said that Irving lacked imag- 
ination. That, while he had humor and 
feeling and fancy, ho was wanting in the 
higher quality, which is the last test of gen- 
ius. We have come to attach to the word 
" imagination " a larger meaning than the 
mere reproduction in the mind of certain 
absent objects of sense that have been per- 
ceived ; there must be a suggestion of some- 
thing beyond these, and an ennobling sug- 
gestion, if not a combination, that amounts 
to a new creation. Now, it seems to me 
that the transmutation of the crude and 
theretofore unpoetical materials, which he 
found in the New World, into what is as 

13 



194 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

absolute a creation as exists in literature, 
was a distinct work of the imagination. Its 
humorous quality does not interfere with its 
largeness of outline, nor with its essential 
poetic coloring. For, whimsical and com- 
ical as is the " Knickerbocker " creation, it 
is enlarged to the proportion of a realm, 
and over that new country of the imagina- 
tion is always the rosy light of sentiment. 

This largeness of modified conception 
cannot be made apparent in such brief ex- 
tracts as we can make, but they will show 
its quality and the author's humor. The 
Low-Dutch settlers of the Nieuw Neder- 
landts are supposed to have sailed from 
Amsterdam in a ship called the Goede 
Vrouw, built by the carpenters of that city, 
who always model their ships on the fair 
forms of their countrywomen. This vessel, 
whose beauteous model was declared to be 
the greatest belle in Amsterdam, had one 
hundred feet in the beam, one hundred feet 
in the keel, and one hundred feet from the 
bottom of the stern-post to the taffrail. 
Those illustrious adventurers who sailed in 
her landed on the Jersey flats, preferring a 
marshy ground, where they could drive 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 195 

piles and construct dykes. They made a 
settlement at the Indian village of Commu- 
nipaw, the e^g from which was hatched the 
mighty city of New York. In the author's 
time this place had lost its importance : — 

" Communipaw is at present but a small vil- 
lage, pleasantly situated, among rural scenery, 
on that beauteous part of the Jersey shore which 
was known in ancient legends by the name of 
Pavonia,^ and commands a grand prospect of the 
superb bay of New York. It is within but half 
an hour's sail of the latter place, provided you 
have a fair wind, and may be distinctly seen from 
the city. Nay, it is a well-known fact, which I 
can testify from my own experience, that on a 
clear still summer evening, you may hear, from 
the Battery of New York, the obstreperous peals 
of broad-mouthed laughter of the Dutch negroes 
at Communipaw, who, like most other negroes, 
are famous for their risible powers. This is pe- 
culiarly the case on Sunday evenings, when, it is 
remarked by an ingenious and observant philos- 
opher, who has made great discoveries in the 
neighborhood of this city, that they always laugh 
loudest, which he attributes to the circumstance 
of their having their holiday clothes on. 

1 Pavonia in the ancient maps, is given to a tract of 
country extending from about Hoboken to Amboy. 



196 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

" These negroes, in fact, like the monks of the 
dark ages, engross all the knowledge of the place, 
and being infinitely more adventurous and more 
knowing than their masters, carry on all the for- 
eign trade ; making frequent voyages to town in 
canoes loaded with oysters, buttermilk, and cab- 
bages. They are great astrologers, predicting 
the different changes of weather almost as accu- 
rately as an almanac ; they are moreover exqui- 
site performers on three-stringed fiddles ; in whist- 
ling they almost boast the far-famed powers of 
Orpheus's lyre, for not a horse or an ox in the 
place, when at the plough or before the wagon, 
will budge a foot until he hears the well-known 
whistle of his black driver and companion. And 
from their amazing skill at casting up accounts 
upon their fingers, they are regarded with as 
much veneration as were the disciples of Py- 
thagoras of yore, when initiated into the sacred 
quaternary of numbers. 

" As to the honest burghers of Communipaw, 
like wise men and sound philosophers, they never 
look beyond their pipes, nor trouble their heads 
about any affairs out of their immediate neigh- 
borhood ; so that they live in profound and en- 
viable ignorance of all the troubles, anxieties, and 
revolutions of this distracted planet. I am even 
told that many among them do verily believe that 
Holland, of which they have heard so much from 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 197 

tradition, is situated somewhere on Long Island, 
— that Spihing-devil and the Narrows are the 
two ends of the world, — that the country is 
still under the dominion of their High Mighti- 
nesses, — and that the city of New York still goes 
by the name of Nieuw Amsterdam. They meet 
every Saturday afternoon at the only tavern in 
the place, which bears as a sign a square-headed 
likeness of the Prince of Orange, where they 
smoke a silent pipe, by way of promoting social 
conviviality, and invariably drink a mug of cider 
to the success of Admiral Van Tromp, who they 
imagine is still sweeping the British channel 
with a broom at his mast-head. 

" Communipaw, in short, is one of the numer- 
ous little villages in the vicinity of this most beau- 
tiful of cities, which are so many strongholds and 
fastnesses, whither the primitive manners of our 
Dutch forefathers have retreated, and where they 
are cherished with devout and scrupulous strict- 
ness. The dress of the original settlers is handed 
down inviolate, from father to son : the identical 
broad-brimmed hat, broad-skirted coat, and broad- 
bottomed breeches, continue from generation to 
generation ; and several gigantic knee-buckles of 
massy silver are still in wear, that made gallant 
display in the days of the patriarchs of Com- 
munipaw. The language likewise continues un- 
adulterated by barbarous innovations ; and so 



198 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

critically correct is the village schoolmaster in his 
dialect, that his reading of a Low-Dutch psalm 
has much the same effect on the nerves as the 
filing of a handsaw." 

The early prosperity of this settlement 
is dwelt on with satisfaction by the au- 
thor : — 

" The neighboring Indians in a short time be- 
came accustomed to the uncouth sound of the 
Dutch language, and an intercourse gradually 
took place between them and the new-comers. 
The Indians were much given to long talks, and 
the Dutch to long silence ; — in this particular, 
therefore, they accommodated each other com- 
pletely. The chiefs would make long speeches 
about the big bull, the Wabash, and the Great 
Spirit, to which the others would listen very at- 
tentively, smoke their pipes, and grunt yah, myn- 
her, — whereat the poor savages were wondrously 
delighted. They instructed the new settlers in 
the best art of curing and smoking tobacco, while 
the latter, in return, made them drunk with true 
Hollands — and then taught them the art of 
making bargains. 

" A brisk trade for furs was soon opened ; the 
Dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their 
dealings and purchased by weight, establishing it 
as an invariable table of avoirdupois, that the 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 199 

hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his 
foot two pounds. It is true, the simple Indians 
were often puzzled by the great disproportion be- 
tween bulk and weight, for let them place a bun- 
dle of furs, never so large, in one scale, and a 
Dutchman put his hand or foot in the other, the 
bundle was sure to kick the beam ; — never was 
a package of furs known to weigh more than 
two pounds in the market of Communipaw ! 

" This is a singular fact, — but I have it direct 
from my great-great-grandfather, who had risen 
to considerable importance in the colony, being 
promoted to the office of weigh-master, on ac- 
count of the uncommon heaviness of his foot. 

"The Dutch possessions in this part of the 
globe began now to assume a very thriving ap- 
pearance, and were comprehended under the gen- 
eral title of Nieuw Nederlandts, on account, as 
the Sage Vander Donck observes, of their great 
resemblance to the Dutch Netherlands, — which 
indeed was truly remarkable, excepting that the 
former were rugged and mountainous, and the 
latter level and marshy. About this time the 
tranquillity of the Dutch colonists was doomed 
to suffer a temporary interruption. In 1614, 
Captain Sir Samuel Argal, sailing under a com- 
mission from Dale, governor of Virginia, visited 
the Dutch settlements on Hudson River, and 
demanded their submission to the English crown 



200 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and Virginian dominion. To this arrogant de- 
mand, as they were in no condition to resist it, 
they submitted for the time, like discreet and 
reasonable men. 

"It does not appear that the valiant Argal 
molested the settlement of Communipaw ; on 
the contrary, I am told that when his vessel first 
hove in sight, the worthy burghers were seized 
with such a panic, that they fell to smoking their 
pipes with astonishing vehemence ; insomuch that 
they quickly raised a cloud, which, combining 
with the surrounding woods and marshes, com- 
pletely enveloped and concealed their beloved vil- 
lage, and overhung the fair regions of Pavonia 
— so that the terrible Captain Argal passed on 
totally unsuspicious that a sturdy little Dutch set- 
tlement lay snugly couched in the mud, under 
cover of all this pestilent vapor. In commemo- 
ration of this fortunate escape, the worthy inhab- 
itants have continued to smoke, almost without 
intermission, unto this very day ; which is said 
to be the cause of the remarkable fog which 
often hangs over Communipaw of a clear after- 
noon." 

The golden age of New York was under 
the reign of Walter Van T wilier, the first 
governor of the province, and the best it 
ever had. In his sketch of this excellent 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 201 

magistrate Irving has embodied the abun- 
dance and tranquillity of those hal cyon 
days : — 

" The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twil- 
ler was descended from a long line of Dutch 
burgomasters, who had successively dozed away 
their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of 
magistracy in Rotterdam ; and who had com- 
ported themselves with such singular wisdom 
and propriety, that they were never either heard 
or talked of — which, next to being universally 
applauded, should be the object of ambition of 
all magistrates and rulers. There are two oppo- 
site ways by which some men make a figure in 
the world : one, by talking faster than they think, 
and the other, by holding their tongues and not 
thinking at all. By the first, many a smatterer 
acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts ; 
by the other, many a dunderpate, like the owl, 
the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered 
the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is 
a casual remark, which I would not, for the uni- 
verse, have it thought I apply to Governor Van 
Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within 
himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except 
in monosyllables ; but then it was allowed he 
seldom said a foolish thing. So invincible was his 
gravity that he was never known to laugh or 



202 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

even to smile through the whole course of a long 
and prosperous life. Nay, if a joke were uttered 
in his presence, that set light-minded hearers in 
a roar, it was observed to throw him into a stato 
of perplexity. Sometimes he would deign to in- 
quire into the matter, and when, after much ex- 
planation, the joke was made as plain as a pike- 
staff, he would continue to smoke his pipe iu 
silence, and at length, knocking out the ashes, 
would exclaim, * Well ! I see nothing in all that 
to laugh about.' 

" With all his reflective habits, he never mado 
up his mind on a subject. His adherents ac- 
counted for this by the astonishing magnitude of 
his ideas. He conceived every subject on so 
grand a scale that he had not room in his head 
to turn it over and examine both sides of it. 
Certain it is, that, if any matter were propounded 
to him on which ordinary mortals would rashly 
determine at first glance, he would put on a 
vague, mysterious look, shake his capacious 
head, smoke some time in profound silence, and 
at length observe, that ' he had his doubts about 
the matter ' ; which gained him the reputation 
of a man slow of belief and not easily imposed 
upon. What is more, it has gained him a lasting 
name ; for to this habit of the mind has been 
attributed his surname of Twiller ; which is said 
to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, or, 
in plain English, Doubter, 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 203 

" The person of this illustrious old gentleman 
was formed and proportioned, as though it had 
been moulded by the hands of some cunning 
Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly 
grandeur. He was exactly five feet six inches 
in heisht, and six feet five inches in circumfer- 
ence. His head was a perfect sphere, and of 
such stupendous dimensions, that dame Nature, 
with all her sex*s ingenuity, would have been 
puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting 
it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, 
and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, 
just between the shoulders. His body was ob- 
long and particularly capacious at bottom ; which 
was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that 
he was a man of sedentary habits, and very 
averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs 
were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight 
they had to sustain ; so that when erect he had 
not a little the appearance of a beer-barrel on 
skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, 
presented a vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of 
those lines and angles which disfigure the human 
countenance with what is termed expression. 
Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the 
midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a 
hazy firmament, and his full-fed cheeks, which 
seemed to have taken toll of everything that 
went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and 
streaked with dusky red, like a spitzenberg apple. 



204 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

" His habits were as regular as his person. 
He daily took his four stated meals, appropri- 
ating exactly an hour to each ; he smoked and 
doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining 
twelve of the four-and-twenty. Such was the 
renowned Wouter Van Twiller, — a true philos- 
opher, for his mind was either elevated above, or 
tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities 
of this world. He had lived in it for years, with- 
out feeling the least curiosity to know whether 
the sun revolved round it, or it round the sun ; 
and he had watched, for at least half a century, 
the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, 
without once troubling his head with any of 
those numerous theories by which a philosopher 
would have perplexed his brain, in accounting 
for its rising above the surrounding atmosphere. 

" In his council he presided with great state 
and solemnity. He sat in a huge chair of solid 
oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague, 
fabricated by an experienced timmerman of 
Amsterdam, and curiously carved about the 
arms and feet into exact imitations of gigantic 
eagle's claws. Instead of a sceptre, he swayed 
a long Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmin and 
amber, which had been presented to a stadtholder 
of Holland at the conclusion of a treaty with one 
of the petty Barbary powers. In this stately 
chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 205 

would he smoke, shaking his right knee with a 
constant motion, and fixing his eye for hours to- 
gether upon a little print of Amsterdam, which 
hung in a black frame against the opposite wall 
of the council-chamber. Nay, it has even been 
said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary 
length and intricacy was on the carpet, the re- 
nowned Wouter would shut his eyes for full two 
hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed 
by external objects ; and at such times the inter- 
nal commotion of his mind was evinced by cer- 
tain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers 
declared were merely the noise of conflict, made 
by his contending doubts and opinions. . . . 

" I have been the more anxious to delineate 
fully the person and habits of Wouter Van Twil- 
ler, from the consideration that he was not only 
the first but also the best governor that ever pre- 
sided over this ancient and respectable province ; 
and so tranquil and benevolent was his reign, 
that I do not find throughout the whole of it a 
single instance of any offender being brought to 
punishment, — a most indubitable sign of a mer- 
ciful governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting 
in the reign of the illustrious King Log, from 
whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van Twiller 
was a lineal descendant. 

" The very outset of the career of this excel- 
lent magistrate was distinguished by an example 



206 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

of legal acumen that gave flattering presage of 
a wise and equitable administration. The morn- 
ing after he had been installed in office, and at 
the moment that he was making his breakfast 
from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk 
and Indian pudding, he was interrupted by the 
appearance of Wandle Schoonhoven, a very im- 
portant old burgher of New Amsterdam, who com- 
plained bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inas- 
much as he refused to come to a settlement of 
accounts, seeing that there was a heavy balance 
in favor of the said Wandle. Governor Van 
Twiller, as I have already observed, was a man 
of few words ; he was likewise a mortal enemy 
to multiplying writings — or being disturbed at 
his breakfast. Having listened attentively to 
the statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving 
an occasional grunt, as he shoveled a spoonful 
of Indian pudding into his mouth, — either as a 
sign that he relished the dish, or comprehended 
the story, — he called unto him his constable, 
and pulling out of his breeches-pocket a huge 
jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant as a 
summons, accompanied by his tobacco-box as a 
warrant. 

" This summary process was as effectual in 
those simple days as was the seal-ring of the 
great Haroun Alraschid among the true believers. 
The two parties being confronted before him, 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 207 

each produced a book of accounts, written in a 
language and character that would have puzzled 
any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a learned 
decipherer of Egyptian obelisks. The sage Wou- 
ter took them one after the other, and having 
poised them in his hands, and attentively counted 
over the number of leaves, fell straightway into 
a very great doubt, and smoked for half an hour 
without saying a word ; at length, laying his 
finger beside his nose, and shutting his eyes for 
a moment, with the air of a man who has just 
caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took 
his pipe from his mouth, puffed forth a column 
of tobacco-smoke, and with marvelous gravity 
and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully 
counted over the leaves and weighed the books, 
it was found, that one was just as thick and as 
heavy as the other : therefore, it was the final 
opinion of the court that the accounts were 
equally balanced : therefore, Wandle should give 
Barent a receipt, and Barent should give Wan- 
dle a receipt, and the constable should pay the 
costs. 

" This decision, being straightway made 
known, diffused general joy throughout New 
Amsterdam, for the people immediately per- 
ceived that they had a very wise and equitable 
magistrate to rule over them. But its happiest 
effect was, that not another lawsuit took place 



208 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

throughout the whole of his administration ; and 
the office of constable fell into such decay, that 
there was not one of those losel scouts known in 
the province for many years. I am the more 
particular in dwelling on this transaction, not 
only because I deem it one of the most sage and 
righteous judgments on record, and well worthy 
the attention of modern magistrates, but because 
it was a miraculous event in the history of the 
renowned Wouter — being the only time he was 
ever known to come to a decision in the whole 
course of his life." 

This peaceful age ended with the acces- 
sion of William the Testy, and the advent 
of the enterprising Yankees. During the 
reigns of William Kieft and Peter Stuyve- 
sant, between the Yankees of the Connecti- 
cut and the Swedes of the Delaware, the 
Dutch community knew no repose, and the 
^^ History " is little more than a series of 
exhausting sieges and desperate battles, 
which would have been as heroic as any in 
history if they had been attended with loss 
of life. The forces that were gathered by 
Peter Stuyvesant for the expedition to 
avenge upon the Swedes the defeat at Fort 
Casimir, and their appearance on the march, 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 209 

give some notion of the military prowess of 
the Dutch. Their appearance, when they 
were encamped on the Bowling Green, re- 
calls the Homeric age : — 

" In the centre, then, was pitched the tent of 
the men of battle of the Manhattoes, who, being 
the inmates of the metropolis, composed the life- 
guards of the governor. These were commanded 
by the valiant S toff el Brinkerhoof, who, whilom 
had acquired such immortal fame at Oyster Bay ; 
they displayed as a standard a beaver rampant 
on a field of orange, being the arms of the prov- 
ince, and denoting the persevering industry and 
the amphibious origin of the Nederlands. 

<' On their right hand might be seen the vassals 
of that renowned Mynheer, Michael Paw, who 
lorded it over the fair regions of ancient Pavonia, 
and the lands away south even unto the Nave- 
sink mountains, and was moreover patroon of 
Gibbet Island. His standard was borne by his 
trusty squire, Cornelius Van Vorst ; consisting of 
a huge oyster recumbent upon a sea-green field ; 
being the armorial bearings of his favorite me- 
tropolis, Communipaw. He brought to the camp 
a stout force of warriors, heavily armed, being 
each clad in ten pair of linsey-woolsey breeches, 
and overshadowed by broad-brimmed beavers, 
with short pipes twisted in their hat-bands. 
U 



210 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

These were the men who vegetated in the mud 
along the shores of Pavonia, being of the race 
of genuine copperheads, and were fabled to have 
sprung from oysters. 

" At a little distance was encamped the tribe 
of warriors who came from the neighborhood of 
Hell-gate. These were commanded by the Suy 
Dams, and the Van Dams, — incontinent hard 
swearers, as their names betoken. They were 
terrible-looking fellows, clad in broad-skirted gab- 
erdines, of that curious colored cloth called thun- 
der and lightning, — and bore as a standard three 
devil's darning-needles, volant, in a flame-colored 
field. 

" Hard by was the tent of the men of battle 
from the marshy borders of the Waale-Boght 
and the country thereabouts. These were of a 
sour aspect, by reason that they lived on crabs, 
which abound in these parts. They were the 
first institutors of that honorable order of knight- 
hood called Fly-market shirks, and, if tradition 
speak true, did likewise introduce the far-famed 
step in dancing called * double trouble.' They 
were commanded by the fearless Jacobus Varra 
Vanger, — and had, moreover, a jolly band of 
Breuckelen ferry-men, who performed a brave 
concerto on conch shells. 

" But I refrain from pursuing this minute de- 
scription, which goes on to describe the warriors 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 211 

of Bloemen-dael, and Weehawk, and Hoboken, 
and sundry other places, well known in history 
and song ; for now do the notes of martial music 
alarm the people of New Amsterdam, sounding 
afar from beyond the walls of the city. But this 
alarm was in a little while relieved, for lo ! from 
the midst of a vast cloud of dust, they recognized 
the brimstone-colored breeches and splendid sil- 
ver leg of Peter Stuyvesant, glaring in the sun- 
beams ; and beheld him approaching at the head 
of a formidable army, which he had mustered 
along the banks of the Hudson. And here the 
excellent but anonymous writer of the Stuyve- 
sant manuscript breaks out into a brave and 
glorious description of the forces, as they defiled 
through the principal gate of the city, that stood 
by the head of Wall Street. 

" First of all came the Van Bummels, who in- 
habit the pleasant borders of the Bronx : these 
were short fat men, wearing exceeding large 
trunk-breeches, and were renowned for feats of 
the trencher. They were the first inventors of 
suppawn, or mush and milk. — Close in their rear 
marched the Van Vlotens, of Kaatskill, horrible 
quaffers of new cider, and arrant braggarts in 
their liquor. — After them came the Van Pelts 
of Groodt Esopus, dexterous horsemen, mounted 
upon goodly switch-tailed steeds of the Esopus 
breed. These were mighty hunters of minks and 



212 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

musk-rats, whence came the word Peltry. — Then 
the Van Nests of Kinderhoeck, valiant robbers 
of birds'-nests, as their name denotes. To these, 
if report may be believed, are we indebted for 
the invention of slap-jacks, or buckwheat-cakes. 

— Then the Van Higginbottoms, of Wapping's 
creek. These came armed with ferules and 
birchen rods, being a race of schoolmasters, who 
first discovered the marvelous sympathy betw-een 
the seat of honor and the seat of intellect, — and 
that the shortest way to get knowledge into the 
head was to hammer it into the bottom. — Then 
the Van Grolls, of Antony's Nose, who carried 
their liquor in fair round little pottles, by reason 
they could not bouse it out of their canteens, 
having such rare long noses. — Then the Gar- 
deniers, of Hudson and thereabouts, distinguished 
by many triumphant feats, such as robbing water- 
melon patches, smoking rabbits out of their holes, 
and the like, and by being great lovers of roasted 
pigs' tails. These were the ancestors of the re- 
nowned congressman of that name. — Then the 
Van Hoesens, of Sing-Sing, great choristers and 
players upon the jews-harp. These marched two 
and two, singing the great song of St. Nicholas. 

— Then the Couenhovens, of Sleepy Hollow. 
These gave birth to a jolly race of publicans, 
who first discovered the magic artifice of conjur- 
ing a quart of wine into a pint bottle. — Then 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 213 

the Van Kortlandts, who lived on the wild banks 
of the Croton, and were great killers of wild 
ducks, being much spoken of for their skill in 
shooting with the long bow. — Then the Van 
Buuschotens, of Njack and Kakiat, who were 
the first that did ever kick with the left foot. 
They were gallant bushwhackers and hunters of 
raccoons by moonlight. — Then the Van Winkles, 
of Haerlem, potent suckers of eggs, and noted 
for running of horses, and running up of scores 
at taverns. They were the first that ever winked 
with both eyes at once. — Lastly came the 
Knickerbockers, of the great town of Scagh- 
tikoke, where the folk lay stones upon the houses 
in windy weather, lest they should be blown 
away. These derive their name, as some say, 
from Knicker, to shake, and Beher^ a goblet, indi- 
cating thereby that they were sturdy toss-pots of 
yore ; but, in truth, it was derived from Knicker, 
to nod, and Boeken, books : plainly meaning that 
they were great nodders or dozers over books. 
From them did descend the writer of this his- 
tory." 

In the midst of Irving's mock-heroics, 
he always preserves a substratum of good 
sense. An instance of this is the address 
of the redoubtable wooden-legged governor, 
on his departure at the head of his war- 
riors to chastise the Swedes : — 



214 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

" Certain it is, not an old woman in New Am- 
sterdam but considered Peter Stuyvesant as a 
tower of strength, and rested satisfied that the 
public welfare was secure so long as he was in 
the city. It is not surprising, then, that they 
looked upon his departure as a sore affliction. 
With heavy hearts they draggled at the heels of 
his troop, as they marched down to the river-side 
to embark. The governor, from the stern of his 
schooner, gave a short but truly patriarchal ad- 
dress to his citizens, wherein he recommended 
them to comport like loyal and peaceable sub- 
jects, — to go to church regularly on Sundays, 
and to mind their business all the week besides. 
That the women should be dutiful and affection- 
ate to their husbands, — looking after nobody's 
concerns but their own, — eschewing all gossip- 
ings and morning gaddings, — and carrying short 
tongues and long petticoats. That the men 
should abstain from intermeddling in public con- 
cerns, intrusting the cares of government to the 
officers appointed to support them, — staying at 
home, like good citizens, making money for them- 
selves, and getting children for the benefit of their 
country. That the burgomasters should look well 
to the public interest, — not oppressing the poor 
nor indulging the rich, — not tasking their inge- 
nuity to devise new laws, but faithfully enforcing 
those which were already made, — rather bend- 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 215 

ing their attention to prevent evil than to punish 
it ; ever recollecting that civil magistrates should 
consider themselves more as guardians of public 
morals than rat-catchers employed to entrap pub- 
lic delinquents. Finally, he exhorted them, one 
and all, high and low, rich and poor, to conduct 
themselves as well as they could, assuring them 
that if they faithfully and conscientiously com- 
plied with this golden rule, there was no danger 
but that they would all conduct themselves well 
enough. This done, he gave them a paternal 
benediction, the sturdy Antony sounded a most 
loving farewell with his trumpet, the jolly crews 
put up a shout of triumph, and the invincible 
armada swept oiF proudly down the bay." 

The account of an expedition against 
Port Christina deserves to be quoted in 
full, for it is an example of what war might 
be, full of excitement, and exercise, and 
heroism, without danger to life. We take 
up the narrative at the moment when the 
Dutch host, — 

" Brimful of wrath and cabbage," — 

and excited by the eloquence of the mighty- 
Peter, lighted their pipes, and charged upon 
the fort. 

" The Swedish garrison, ordered by the cun- 



216 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ning Risingh not to fire until they could dis- 
tinguish the whites of their assailants' eyes, 
stood in horrid silence on the covert-way, until 
the eager Dutchmen had ascended the glacis. 
Then did they pour into them such a tremen- 
dous volley, that the very hills quaked around, 
and were terrified even unto an incontinence of 
water, insomuch that certain springs burst forth 
from their sides, which continue to run unto the 
present day. Not a Dutchman but would have 
bitten the dust beneath that dreadful fire, had 
not the protecting Minerva kindly taken care 
that the Swedes should, one and all, observe 
their usual custom of shutting their eyes and 
turning away their heads at the moment of dis- 
charge. 

" The Swedes followed up their fire by leaping 
the counterscarp, and falling tooth and nail upon 
the foe with curious outcries. And now might 
be seen prodigies of valor, unmatched in history 
or song. Here was the sturdy Stoffel Brinker- 
hoif brandishing his quarter-staff, like the giant 
Blanderon his oak-tree (for he scorned to carry 
any other weapon), and drumming a horrific tune 
upon the hard heads of the Swedish soldiery. 
There were the Van Kortlandts, posted at a dis- 
tance, like the Locriau archers of yore, and ply- 
ing it most potently with the long-bow, for which 
they were so justly renowned. On a rising knoll 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. ' 217 

were gathered the valiant meo of Sing-Sin o-, as- 
sisting marvelously in the fight by chanting the 
great song of St. Nicholas ; but as to the Gar- 
deniers of Hudson, they were absent on a ma- 
rauding party, laying waste the neighboring 
water-melon patches. 

" In a different part of the field were the Van 
Grolls of Antony's Nose, struggling to get to 
the thickest of the fight, but horribly perplexed 
in a defile between two hills, by reason of the 
length of their noses. So also the Van Bunscho- 
tens of Nyack and Kakiat, so renowned for kick- 
ing with the left foot, were brought to a stand for 
want of wind, in consequence of the hearty din- 
ner they had eaten, and would have been put to 
utter rout but for the arrival of a gallant corps 
of voltigeurs, composed of the Hoppers, who ad- 
vanced nimbly to their assistance on one foot. 
Nor must I omit to mention the valiant achieve- 
ments of Antony Van Corlear, who, for a good 
quarter of an hour, waged stubborn fight with a 
little pursy Swedish drummer, whose hide he 
drummed most magnificently, and whom he 
would infallibly have annihilated on the spot, but 
that he had come into the battle with no other 
weapon but his trumpet. 

" But now the combat thickened. On came 
the mighty Jacobus Varra Vanger and the fight- 
ing-men of the Wallabout ; after them thundered 



218 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the Van Pelts of Esopus, together with the Van 
Rippers and the Van Brunts, bearing down all 
before them ; then the Suy Dams, and the Van 
Dams, pressing forward with many a blustering 
oath, at the head of the warriors of Hell-gate, 
clad in their thunder-and-lightning gaberdines ; 
and lastly, the standard-bearers and body-guard 
of Peter Stuyvesant, bearing the great beaver of 
the Manhattoes. 

" And now commenced the horrid din, the des- 
perate struggle, the maddening ferocity, the 
frantic desperation, the confusion and self-aban- 
donment of war. Dutchman and Swede com- 
mingled, tugged, panted, and blowed. The 
heavens were darkened with a tempest of mis- 
sives. Bang ! went the guns ; whack ! went the 
broad-swords ; thump ! went the cudgels ; crash ! 
went the musket-stocks ; blows, kicks, cuffs, 
scratches, black eyes and bloody noses swelling 
the horrors of the scene ! Thick thwack, cut 
and hack, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hurly- 
burly, head-over-heels, rough-and-tumble ! Dun- 
der and blixum ! swore the Dutchmen ; splitter 
and splutter ! cried the Swedes. Storm the 
works! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the 
mine ! roared stout Risingh. Tanta-rar-ra-ra ! 
twanged the trumpet of Antony Van Corlear ; 
— until all voice and sound became unintelligi- 
ble, — grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 219 

of triumph miEgling in one hideous clamor. The 
earth shook as if struck with a paralytic stroke ; 
trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight ; 
rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits ; and 
even Christina Creek turned from its course and 
ran up a hill in breathless terror ! 

" Long hung the contest doubtful ; for though 
a heavy shower of rain, sent by the " cloud-com- 
pelling Jove," in some measure cooled their ardor, 
as doth a bucket of water thrown on a group 
of fighting mastiffs, yet did they but pause for 
a moment, to return with tenfold fury to the 
charge. Just at this juncture a vast and dense 
column of smoke was seen slowly rolling toward 
the scene of battle. The combatants paused for 
a moment, gazing in mute astonishment, until the 
wind, dispelling the murky cloud, revealed the 
flaunting banner of Michael Paw, the Patroon of 
Communipaw. That valiant chieftain came fear- 
lessly on at the head of a phalanx of oyster-fed 
Pavonians and a corps de reserve of the Van 
Arsdales and Van Bummels, who had remained 
behind to digest the enormous dinner they had 
eaten. These now trudged manfully forward, 
smoking their pipes with outrageous vigor, so as 
to raise the awful cloud that has been mentioned, 
but marching exceedingly slow, being short of 
leg, and of great rotundity in the belt. 

" And now the deities who watched over the 



220 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

fortunes of the Nederlanders having unthinkingly- 
left the field, and stepped into a neighboring 
tavern to refresh themselves with a pot of beer, 
a direful catastrophe had wellnigh ensued. Scarce 
had the myrmidons of Michael Paw attained the 
front of battle, when the Swedes, instructed by 
the cunning Risingh, leveled a shower of blows 
full at their tobacco-pipes. Astounded at this 
assault, and dismayed at the havoc of their pipes, 
these ponderous warriors gave way, and like a 
drove of frightened elephants broke through the 
ranks of their own army. The little Hoppers 
were borne down in the surge ; the sacred ban- 
ner emblazoned with the gigantic oyster of Com- 
munipaw was trampled in the dirt ; on blundered 
and thundered the heavy-sterned fugitives, the 
Swedes pressing on their rear and applying their 
feet a parte poste of the Van Arsdales and the 
Van Bummels with a vigor that prodigiously 
accelerated their movements ; nor did the re- 
nowned Michael Paw himself fail to receive 
divers grievous and dishonorable visitations of 
shoe-leather. 

" But what, oh Muse ! was the rage of Peter 
Stuyvesant, when from afar he saw his army giv- 
ing way ! In the transports of his wrath he 
sent forth a roar, enough to shake the very hills. 
The men of the Manhattoes plucked up new 
courage at the sound, or, rather, they rallied at 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 221 

the voice of their leader, of whom they stood 
more in awe than of all the Swedes in Christen- 
dom. Without waiting for their aid, the daring 
Peter dashed, sword in hand, into the thickest of 
the foe. Then might be seen achievements 
worthy of the days of the giants. Wherever he 
went the enemy shrank before him ; the Swedes 
fled to right and left, or were driven, like dogs, 
into their own ditch ; but as he pushed forward, 
singly with headlong courage, the foe closed be- 
hind and hung upon his rear. One aimed a blow 
full at his heart ; but the protecting power which 
watches over the great and good turned aside 
the hostile blade and directed it to a side-pocket, 
where reposed an enormous iron tobacco-box, 
endowed, like the shield of Achilles, with super- 
natural powers, doubtless from bearing the por- 
trait of the blessed St. Nicholas. Peter Stuy ve- 
sant turned like an angry bear upon the foe, and 
seizing him, as he fled, by an immeasurable queue, 
*Ah, whoreson caterpillar,' roared he, 'here's 
what shall make worms' meat of thee ! ' so say- 
ing he whirled his sword and dealt a blow that 
would have decapitated the varlet, but that the 
pitying steel struck short and shaved the queue 
forever from his crown. At this moment an 
arquebusier leveled his piece from a neighboring 
mound, with deadly aim ; but the watchful Mi- 
nerva, who had just stopped to tie up her garter, 



222 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

seeing the peril of her favorite hero, sent old 
Boreas with his bellows, who, as the match de- 
scended to the pan, gave a blast that blew the 
priming from the touch-hole. 

" Thus waged the fight, when the stout Kisingh, 
surveying the field from the top of a little ravelin, 
perceived his troops banged, beaten, and kicked 
by the invincible Peter. Drawing his falchion, 
and uttering a thousand anathemas, he strode 
down to the scene of combat with some such 
thundering strides as Jupiter is said by Hesiod 
to have taken when he strode down the spheres 
to hurl his thunder-bolts at the Titans. 

" When the rival heroes came face to face, 
each made a prodigious start in the style of a 
veteran stage-champion. Then did they regard 
each other for a moment with the bitter aspect of 
two furious ram-cats on the point of a clapper- 
clawing. Then did they throw themselves into 
one attitude, then into another, striking their 
swords on the ground, first on the right side, then 
on the left : at last at it they went with incredi- 
ble ferocity. Words cannot tell the prodigies of 
strength and valor displayed in this direful en- 
counter, — an encounter compared to which the 
far-famed battles of Ajax with Hector, of ^neas 
with Turnus, Orlando with Rodomont, Guy of 
Warwick with Colbrand the Dane, or of that 
renowned Welsh knight, Sir Owen of the Mount- 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 223 

ains, with the giant Guylon, were all gentle 
sports and holiday recreations. At length the 
valiant Peter, watching his opportunity, aimed a 
blow enough to cleave his adversary to the very 
chine; but Risingh, nimbly raising his sword, 
warded it off so narrowly, that, glancing on one 
side, it shaved away a huge canteen in which he 
carried his liquor, — thence pursuing its trench- 
ant course, it severed off a deep coat-pocket, 
stored with bread and cheese, — which provant, 
rolling among the armies, occasioned a fearful 
scrambling between the Swedes and Dutchmen, 
and made the general battle to wax more furious 
than ever. 

" Enraged to see his military stores laid waste, 
the stout Risingh, collecting all his forces, aimed 
a mighty blow full at the hero's crest. In vain 
did his fierce little cocked hat oppose its course. 
The biting steel clove through the stubborn ram 
beaver, and would have cracked the crown of 
any one not endowed with supernatural hardness 
of head; but the brittle weapon shivered in 
pieces on the skull of Hardkoppig Piet, shedding 
a thousand sparks, like beams of glory, round 
his grizzly visage. 

" The good Peter reeled with the blow, and 
turning up his eyes beheld a thousand suns, be- 
sides moons and stars, dancing about the firma- 
ment ; at length, missing his footing, by reason 



224 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

of his wooden leg, down he came on his seat of 
honor with a crash which shook the surrounding 
hills, and might have wrecked his frame, had he 
not been received into a cushion softer than vel- 
vet, which Providence, or Minerva, or St. Nicho- 
las, or some cow, had benevolently prepared for 
his reception. 

" The furious Risingh, in despite of the maxim, 
cherished by all true knights, that ' fair play 
is a jewel,' hastened to take advantage of the 
hero's fall ; but, as he stooped to give a fatal 
blow, Peter Stuyvesant dealt him a thwack over 
the sconce with his wooden leg, which set a 
chime of bells ringing triple bob-majors in his 
cerebellum. The bewildered Swede staggered 
with the blow, and the wary Peter seizing a 
pocket-pistol, which lay hard by, discharged it 
full at the head of the reeling Risfngh. Let not 
my reader mistake ; it was not a murderous 
weapon loaded with powder and ball, but a little 
sturdy stone pottle charged to the muzzle with a 
double dram of true Dutch courage, which the 
knowing Antony Van Corlear carried about him 
by way of replenishing his valor, and which had 
dropped from his wallet during his furious en- 
counter with the drummer. The hideous weapon 
sang through the air, and true to its course as 
was the fragment of a rock discharged at Hector 
by bully Ajax, encountered the head of the gigan- 
tic Swede with matchless violence. 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 225 

" This heaven-directed blow decided the battle. 
The ponderous pericranium of General Jan Ris- 
ingh sank upon his breast ; his knees tottered 
under him; a deathlike torpor seized upon his 
frame, and he tumbled to the earth with such 
violence that old Pluto started with affright, lest 
he should have broken through the roof of his 
infernal palace. 

*' His fall was the signal of defeat and victory : 
the Swedes gave way, the Dutch pressed for- 
ward ; the former took to their heels, the latter 
hotly pursued. Some entered with them, pell- 
mell, through the sally-port ; others stormed the 
bastion, and others scrambled over the curtain. 
Thus in a little while the fortress of Fort Chris- 
tina, which, like another Troy, had stood a siege 
of full ten hours, was carried by assault, with- 
out the loss of a single man on either side. Vic- 
tory, in the likeness of a gigantic ox-fly, sat 
perched upon the cocked hat of the gallant Stuy- 
vesant; and it was declared by all the writers 
whom he hired to write the history of his expe- 
dition that on this memorable day he gained a 
sufficient quantity of glory to immortalize a dozen 
of the greatest heroes in Christendom ! " 

In the " Sketch-Book," Irving set a kind 
of fashion in narrative essays, in brief sto- 
ries of mingled humor and pathos, which 

15 



226 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

was followed for half a century. He him- 
self worked the same vein in " Bracebridge 
Hall," and " Tales of a Traveller." And 
there is no doubt that some of the most 
fascinating of the minor sketches of Charles 
Dickens, such as the story of the Bagman's 
Uncle, are lineal descendants of, if they 
were not suggested by, Irving's " Adven- 
ture of My Uncle," and the "Bold Dra- 
goon." 

The taste for the leisurely description 
and reminiscent essay of the '' Sketch- 
Book " does not characterize the readers of 
this generation, and we have discovered 
that the pathos of its elaborated scenes is 
somewhat " literary." The sketches of 
" Little Britain," and " Westminster Ab- 
bey," and, indeed, that of " Stratford-on- 
Avon," will for a long time retain their 
place in selections of " good reading ; " but 
the " Sketch-Book " is only floated, as an 
original work, by two papers, the " Rip Van 
Winkle " and the " Legend of Sleepy Hol- 
low;" that is to say by the use of the 
Dutch material, and the elaboration of the 
"Knickerbocker Legend," which was the 
great achievement of Irving's life. This 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 227 

was broadened and deepened and illustrated 
by the several stories of the " Money Dig- 
gers," of " Wolfert Webber " and " Kidd 
the Pirate," in " The Tales of a Traveller," 
and by " Dolph Heyliger "in " Bracebridge 
Hall." Irving was never more successful 
than in painting the Dutch manners and 
habits of the early time, and he returned 
again and again to the task until he not 
only made the shores of the Hudson and 
the islands of New York harbor and the 
East River classic ground, but until his 
conception of Dutch life in the New World 
had assumed historical solidity and become 
a tradition of the highest poetic value. If 
in the multiplicity of books and the change 
of taste the bulk of Irving's works shall go 
out of print, a volume made up of his Knick- 
erbocker history and the legends relating to 
the region of New York and the Hudson 
would survive as long as anything that has 
been produced in this country. 

The philosophical student of the origin of 
New World society may find food for reflec- 
tion in the " materiality " of the basis of 
the civilization of New York. The picture 
of abundance and of enjoyment of animal 



228 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

life is perhaps not overdrawn in Irving's 
sketch of the home of the Van Tassels, in 
" The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." It is 
all the extract we can make room for from 
that careful study : — 

" Among the musical disciples who assembled, 
one evening in each week, to receive his instruc- 
tions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the 
daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch 
farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eigh- 
teen ; plump as a partridge ; ripe and melting 
and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, 
and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, 
but her vast expectations. She was, withal, a little 
of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her 
dress, which was a mixture of ancient and mod- 
ern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. 
She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold 
which her great-great-grandmother had brought 
over from Saardam ; the tempting stomacher of 
the olden time ; and withal a provokingly short 
petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle 
in the country round. 

" Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart 
towards the sex ; and it is not to be wondered at 
that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his 
eyes, more especially after he had visited her in 
her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel 



THE CHARACTERTSTIC WORKS. 229 

was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, 
liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent 
either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the bound- 
aries of his own farm ; but within those every- 
thing was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He 
was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it ; 
and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance 
rather than the style in which he lived. His 
stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hud- 
son, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks 
in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nest- 
ling. A great elm-tree spread its broad branches 
over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a spring 
of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well, 
formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling 
away through the grass to a neighboring brook, 
that bubbled along among alders and dwarf wil- 
lows. Hard by the farm-house was a vast barn, 
that might have served for a church, every win- 
dow and crevice of which seemed bursting forth 
with the treasures of the farm. The flail was 
busily resounding within it from morning till 
night ; swallows and martins skimmed twittering 
about the eaves ; and rows of pigeons, some with 
one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, 
some with their heads under their wings, or 
buried in their bosoms, and others swelling and 
cooing and bowing about their dames, were en- 
joying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy 



230 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

porkers were grunting in the repose and abun- 
dance of their pens, whence sallied forth, now 
and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff 
the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were 
riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole 
fleets of ducks ; regiments of turkeys were gob- 
bling through the farm-yard, and guinea fowls 
fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, 
with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the 
barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern 
of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, 
clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the 
pride and gladness of his heart — sometimes tear- 
ing up the earth with his feet, and then gener- 
ously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and 
children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had 
discovered. 

" The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked 
upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter 
fare. In his -devouring mind's eye he pictured 
to himself every roasting-pig running about with 
a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth ; 
the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfort- 
able pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust ; 
the geese were swimming in their own gravy, and 
the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug mar- 
ried couples, with a decent competency of onion- 
sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the 
future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing 



THE CHARACTERISTFC WORKS. 231 

ham ; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed 
up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, perad- 
venture, a necklace of savory sausages ; and even 
bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his 
back, in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if 
craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit 
disdained to ask while living. 

" As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, 
and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat 
meadow-lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of 
buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchard 
burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the 
warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned 
after the damsel who was to inherit these do- 
mains, and his imagination expanded with the 
idea how they might be readily turned into cash, 
and the money invested in immense tracts of wild 
land and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, 
his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and 
presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a 
whole family of children, mounted on the top of 
a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with 
pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he be- 
held himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a 
colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, or the Lord knows where. 

" When he entered the house, the conquest of 
his heart was complete. It was one of those spa- 
cious farm-houses, with high-ridged, but lowly- 



232 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from 
the first Dutch settlers ; the low projecting eaves 
forming a piazza along the front, capable of be- 
ing closed up in bad weather. Under this were 
hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, 
and nets for fishing in the neighboring river. 
Benches were built along the sides for summer 
use ; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and 
a churn at the other, showed the various uses to 
which this important porch might be devoted. 
From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered 
the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion 
and the place of usual residence. Here, rows of 
resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, 
dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge 
bag of wool ready to be spun ; in another a quan- 
tity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom ; ears 
of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and 
peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, 
mingled with the gaud of red peppers ; and a 
door left ajar gave him a peep into the best par- 
lor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark ma- 
hogany tables shone like mirrors ; and irons, with 
their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened 
from their covert of asparagus tops ; mock-or- 
anges and conch-shells decorated the mantel- 
piece ; strings of various colored birds' eggs were 
suspended above it ; a great ostrich egg was hung 
from the centre of the room, and a corner cup- 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 233 

board, knowingly left open, displayed immense 
treasures of old silver and well-mended china." 

It is an abrupt transition from these 
homely scenes, which humor commends to 
our liking, to the chivalrous pageant un- 
rolled for us in the " Conquest of Granada." 
The former are more characteristic and the 
more enduring of Irving's writings, but as a 
literary artist his genius lent itself just as 
readily to Oriental and mediaeval romance 
as to the Knickerbocker legend ; and there 
is no doubt that the delicate perception he 
had of chivalric achievements gave a refined 
tone to his mock heroics, which greatly 
heightened their effect. It may almost be 
claimed that Irving did for Granada and 
the Alhambra what he did, in a totally dif- 
ferent way, for New York and its vicinity. 

The first passage I take from the " Con- 
quest " is the description of the advent at 
Cordova of the Lord Scales, Earl of Rivers, 
who was brother of the queen of Henry 
VII., a soldier who had fought at Bos worth 
field, and now volunteered to aid Ferdinand 
and Isabella in the extermination of the 
Saracens. The description is put into the 
mouth of Fray Antonio Agapida, a fictitious 



234 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

chronicler invented by Irving, an unfortu- 
nate intervention which gives to the whole 
book an air of unveracity ; — 

" ' This cavalier [he observes] was from the far 
island of England, and brought with him a train 
of his vassals ; men who had been hardened in 
certain civil wars which raged in their country. 
They were a comely race of men, but too fair 
and fresh for warriors, not having the sunburnt, 
warlike hue of our old Castilian soldiery. They 
were huge feeders also, and deep carousers, and 
could not accommodate themselves to the sober 
diet of our troops, but must fain eat and drink 
after the manner of their own country. They 
were often noisy and unruly, also, in their was- 
sail ; and their quarter of the camp was prone 
to be a scene of loud revel and sudden brawl. 
They were, withal, of great pride, yet it was not 
like our inflammable Spanish pride : they stood 
not much upon the pundonor, the high punctilio, 
and rarely drew the stiletto in their disputes ; but 
their pride was silent and contumelious. Though 
from a remote and somewhat barbarous island, 
they believed themselves the most perfect men 
upon earth, and magnified their chieftain, the 
Lord Scales, beyond the greatest of their grandees. 
With all this, it must be said of them that they 
were marvelous good men in the field, dexterous 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 235 

archers, and powerful with the battle-axe. In 
their great pride and self-will, they always sought 
to press in the advance and take the post of dan- 
ger, trying to outvie our Spanish chivalry. They 
did not rush on fiercely to the fight, nor make 
a brilliant onset like the Moorish and Spanish 
troops, but they went into the fight deliberately, 
and persisted obstinately, and were slow to find 
out when they were beaten. Withal they were 
much esteemed yet little liked by our soldiery, 
who considered them staunch companions in the 
field, yet coveted but little fellowship with them 
in the camp. 

" ' Their commander, the Lord Scales, was an 
accomplished cavalier, of gracious and noble 
presence and fair speech ; it was a marvel to see 
so much courtesy in a knight brought up so far 
from our Castilian court. He was much honored 
by the king and queen, and found great favor 
with the fair dames about the court, who indeed 
are rather prone to be pleased with foreign cava- 
liers. He went always in costly state, attended 
by pages and esquires, and accompanied by noble 
young cavaliers of his country, who had enrolled 
themselves under his banner, to learn the gentle 
exercise of arms. In all pageants and festivals, 
the eyes of the populace were attracted by the 
singular bearing and rich array of the English 
earl and his train, who prided themselves in al- 



236 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ways appearing in the garb and manner of their 
country — and were indeed something very mag- 
nificent, delectable, and strange to behold.' 

" The worthy chronicler is no less elaborate in 
his description of the masters of Santiago, Cala- 
trava, and Alcantara, and their valiant knights, 
armed at all points, and decorated with the badges 
of their orders. These, he affirms, were the 
flower of Christian chivalry ; being constantly in 
service they became more steadfast and accom- 
plished in discipline than the irregular and tem- 
porary levies of feudal nobles. Calm, solemn, 
and stately, they sat like towers upon their pow- 
erful chargers. On parades they manifested none 
of the show and ostentation of the other troops : 
neither, in battle, did they endeavor to signalize 
themselves by any fiery vivacity, or desperate and 
vainglorious exploit, — everything, with them, 
was measured and sedate ; yet it was observed 
that none were more warlike in their a^Dpearance 
in the camp, or more terrible for their achieve- 
ments in the field. 

"The gorgeous magnificence of the Spanish 
nobles found but little favor in the eyes of the 
sovereigns. They saw that it caused a competi- 
tion in expense ruinous to cavaliers of moderate 
fortune ; and they feared that a softness and ef- 
feminacy might thus be introduced, incompatible 
with the stern nature of the war. They signified 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 237 

their disapprobation to several of the principal 
noblemen, and recommended a more sober and 
soldier-like display while in actual service. 

" ' These are rare troojDS for a tournay, my 
lord [said Ferdinand to the Duke of Infantado, 
as he beheld his retainers glittering in gold and 
embroidery] ; but gold, though gorgeous, is soft 
and yielding : iron is the metal for the field.' 

" ' Sire [replied the duke], if my men parade 
in gold, your majesty will find they fight with 
steel.' The king smiled, but shook his head, and 
the duke treasured up his speech in his heart." 

Our author excels in such descriptions as 
that of the progress of Isabella to the camp 
of Ferdinand after the capture of Loxa, and 
of the picturesque pageantry which imparted 
something of gayety to the brutal pastime 
of war : — 

"It was in the early part of June that the 
queen departed from Cordova, with the Princess 
Isabella and numerous ladies of her court. She 
had a glorious attendance of cavaliers and pages, 
with many guards and domestics. There were 
forty mules for the use of the queen, the prin- 
cess, and their train. 

"As this courtly cavalcade approached the 
Kock of the Lovers, on the banks of the river 
Yeguas, they beheld a splendid train of knights 



238 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

advancing to meet them. It was headed by that 
accomplished cavalier the Marques Duke de Ca- 
diz, accompanied by the adelantado of Andalusia. 
He had left the camp the day after the capture 
of Illora, and advanced thus far to receive the 
queen and escort her over the borders. The 
queen received the marques with distinguished 
honor, for he was esteemed the mirror of chiv- 
alry. His actions in this war had become the 
theme of every tongue, and many hesitated not 
to compare him in prowess with the immortal 
Cid. 

"Thus gallantly attended, the queen entered 
the vanquished frontier of Granada, journeying 
securely along the pleasant banks of the Xenel, 
so lately subject to the scourings of the Moors. 
She stopped at Loxa, where she administered 
aid and consolation to the wounded, distributing 
money among them for their support, according 
to their rank. 

"The king, after the capture of Illora, had 
removed his camp before the fortress of Moclin, 
with an intention of besieging it. Thither the 
queen proceeded, still escorted through the mount- 
ain roads by the Marques of Cadiz. As Isabella 
drew near to the camp, the Duke del Infantado 
issued forth a league and a half to receive her, 
magnificently arrayed, and followed by all his 
chivalry in glorious attire. With him came the 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 239 

standard of Seville, borne by the men-at-arms of 
that renowned city, and the Prior of St. Juan, 
with his followers. They ranged themselves in 
order of battle, on the left of the road by which 
the queen was to pass. 

" The worthy Agapida is loyally minute in 
his description of the state and grandeur of the 
Catholic sovereigns. The queen rode a chestnut 
mule, seated in a magnificent saddle-chair, deco- 
rated with silver gilt. The housings of the mule 
were of fine crimson cloth ; the borders embroid- 
ered with gold ; the reins and head-piece were 
of satin, curiously embossed with needlework of 
silk, and wrought with golden letters. The queen 
wore a brial or regal skirt of velvet, under which 
were others of brocade ; a scarlet mantle, orna- 
mented in the Moresco fashion ; and a black hat, 
embroidered round the crown and brim. 

" The infanta was likewise mounted on a chest- 
nut mule, richly caparisoned. She wore a brial 
or skirt of black brocade, and a black mantle or- 
namented like that of the queen. 

"When the royal cavalcade passed by the 
chivalry of the Duke del Infantado, which was 
drawn out in battle array, the queen made a rev- 
erence to the standard of Seville, and ordered it 
to pass to the right hand. When she approached 
the camp, the multitude ran forth to meet her, 
with great demonstrations of joy ; for she was 



240 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

universally beloved by her subjects. All the 
battalions sallied forth in military array, bearing 
the various standards and banners of the camp, 
which were lowered in salutation as she passed. 

" The king now came forth in royal state, 
mounted on a superb chestnut horse, and at- 
tended by many grandees of Castile. He wore 
a jubon or close vest of crimson cloth, with 
cuisses or short skirts of yellow satin, a loose 
cassock of brocade, a rich Moorish scimiter, and 
a hat with plumes. The grandees who attended 
him were arrayed with wonderful magnificence, 
each according to his taste and invention. 

" These high and mighty princes [says Antonio 
Agapida] regarded each other with great defer- 
ence, as allied sovereigns rather than with con- 
nubial familiarity, as mere husband and wife. 
When they approached each other, therefore, be- 
fore embracing, they made three profound rever- 
ences, the queen taking off her hat, and remain- 
ing in a silk net or cawl, with her face uncovered. 
The king then approached and embraced her, and 
kissed her respectfully on the cheek. He also 
embraced his daughter the princess ; and, making 
the sign of the cross, he blessed her, and kissed 
her on the lips. 

" The good Agapida seems scarcely to have 
been more struck with the appearance of the sov- 
ereigns than with that of the English earl. He 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 241 

followed [says he] immediately after tlie king, 
with great pomp, and, in an extraordinary man- 
ner, taking precedence of all the rest. He was 
mounted ' a la guisa,' or with long stirrups, on a 
superb chestnut horse, with trappings of azure 
silk which reached to the ground. The housings 
were of mulberry, powdered with stars of gold. 
He was armed in proof, and wore over his armor 
a short French mantle of black brocade ; he had 
a white French hat with plumes, and carried on 
his left arm a small round, buckler, banded with 
gold. Five pages attended him, apparelled in 
silk and brocade, and mounted on horses sumpt- 
uously caparisoned ; he had also a train of fol- 
lowers, bravely attired after the fashion of his 
country. 

" He advanced in a chivalrous and courteous 
manner, making his reverences first to the queen 
and infanta, and afterwards to the king. Queen 
Isabella received him graciously, complimenting 
him on his courageous conduct at Loxa, and con- 
doling with him on the loss of his teeth. The 
earl, however, made light of his disfiguring wound, 
saying that * our blessed Lord, who had built all 
that house, had opened a window there, that he 
might see more readily what passed within ; * 
whereupon the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida is 
more than ever astonished at the pregnant wit of 
this island cavalier. The earl continued some 
16 



242 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

little distance by the side of the royal family, 
complimenting them all with courteous speeches, 
his horse curveting and caracoling, but being 
managed with great grace and dexterity, — leav- 
ing the grandees and the people at large not more 
filled with admiration at the strangeness and mag- 
nificence of his state than at the excellence of his 
horsemanship. 

" To testify her sense of the gallantry and ser- 
vices of this noble English knight, who had come 
from so far to assist in their wars, the queen sent 
him the next day presents of twelve horses, with 
stately tents, fine linen, two beds with coverings 
of gold brocade, and many other articles of great 
value." 

The protracted siege of the city of Gra- 
nada was the occasion of feats of arms and 
hostile courtesies which rival in brilliancy 
any in the romances of chivalry. Irving's 
pen is never more congenially employed 
than in describing these desperate but ro- 
mantic encomiters. One of the most pict- 
uresque of these was known as " the queen's 
skirmish." The royal encampment was 
situated so far from Granada that only the 
general aspect of the city could be seen as 
it rose from the vega, covering the sides 
of the hills with its palaces and towers. 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 243 

Queen Isabella expressed a desire for a 
nearer view of the city, whose beauty was 
renowned throughout th*^ world, and the 
courteous Marques of Cadiz proposed to give 
her this perilous gratification. 

" On the morning of June the 18th, a magnifi- 
cent and powerful train issued from the Chris- 
tian camp. The advanced guavd was composed 
of legions of cavalry, heavily armed, looking like 
moving masses of polished steel. Then came 
the king and queen, with the prince and prin- 
cesses, and the ladies of the court, surrounded by 
the royal body-guard, sumptuously arrayed, com- 
posed of the sons of the most illustrious houses 
of Spain ; after these was the rear-guard, a pow- 
erful force of horse and foot ; for the flower of 
the army sallied forth that day. The Moors 
gazed with fearful admiration at this glorious 
pageant, wherein the pomp of the court was min- 
gled with the terrors of the camp. It moved 
along in radiant line, across the vega, to the me- 
lodious thunders of martial music, while banner 
and plume, and silken scarf, and rich brocade, 
gave a gay and gorgeous relief to the grim vis- 
age of iron war that lurked beneath. 

" The army moved towards the hamlet of Zu- 
bia, built on the skirts of the mountain to the 
left of Granada, and commanding a view of the 



244 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Alhambra, and the most beautiful quarter of the 
city. As they approached the hamlet, the Mar- 
ques of Villena, the Count Ureiia, and Don 
Alonzo de Aguilar filed off with their battalions, 
and were soon seen glittering along the side of 
the mountain above the village. In the mean 
time the Marques of Cadiz, the Count de Ten- 
dilla, the Count de Cabra, and Don Alonzo Fer- 
nandez, senior of Alcaudrete and Montemayor, 
drew up their forces in battle array on the plain 
below the hamlet, presenting a living barrier of 
loyal chivalry between the sovereigns and the 
city. 

" Thus securely guarded, the royal party alight- 
ed, and, entering one of the houses of the ham- 
let, which had been prepared for their reception, 
enjoyed a full view of the city from its terraced 
roof. The ladies of the court gazed with delight 
at the red towers of the Alhambra, rising from 
amid shady groves, anticipating the time when 
the Catholic sovereigns should be enthroned 
within its walls, and its courts shine with the 
splendor of Spanish chivalry. ' The reverend 
prelates and holy friars, who always surrounded 
the queen, looked with serene satisfaction,' says 
Fray Antonio Agapida, ' at this modern Baby- 
lon, enjoying the triumph that awaited them, 
when those mosques and minarets should be con- 
verted into churches, and goodly priests and 
bishops should succeed to the infidel alfaquis.' 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 245 

" When the Moors beheld the Christians thus 
drawn forth in full array in the plain, they sup- 
posed it was to offer battle, and hesitated not to 
accept it. In a little while the queen beheld a 
body of Moorish cavalry pouring into the vega, 
the riders managing their fleet and fiery steeds 
with admirable address. They were richly armed, 
and clothed in the most brilliant colors, and the 
caparisons of their steeds flamed with gold and 
embroidery. This was the favorite squadron of 
Muza, composed of the flower of the youthful 
cavaliers of Granada. Others succeeded, some 
heavily armed, others a la gineta, with lance and 
buckler ; and lastly came the legions of foot-sol- 
diers, with arquebus and cross-bow, and spear 
and scimiter. 

*' When the queen saw this array issuing from 
the city, she sent to the Marques of Cadiz, and 
forbade any attack upon the enemy, or the ac- 
ceptance of any challenge to a skirmish ; for she 
was loth that her curiosity should cost the life of 
a single human being. 

" The marques promised to obey, though sorely 
against his will ; and it grieved the spirit of the 
Spanish cavaliers to be obliged to remain with 
sheathed swords while bearded by the foe. The 
Moors could not comprehend the meaning of this 
inaction of the Christians, after having appar- 
ently invited a battle. They sallied several 



246 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

times from their ranks, and approached near 
enough to discharge their arrows ; but the Chris- 
tians were immovable. Many of the Moorish 
horsemen galloped close to the Christian ranks, 
brandishing their lances and scimiters, and de- 
fying various cavaliers to single combat ; but 
Ferdinand had rigorously prohibited all duels of 
this kind, and they dared not transgress his or- 
ders under his very eye. 

" Here, however, the worthy Fray Antonio 
Agapida, in his enthusiasm for the triumphs of 
the faith, records the following incident, which 
we fear is not sustained by any grave chronicler 
of the times, but rests merely on tradition, or 
the authority of certain poets and dramatic writ- 
ers, who have perpetuated the tradition in their 
works. While this grim and reluctant tranquil- 
lity prevailed along the Christian line, says Aga- 
pida, there rose a mingled shout and sound of 
laughter near the gate of the city. A Moorish 
horseman, armed at all points, issued forth, fol- 
lowed by a rabble, who drew back as he ap- 
proached the scene of danger. The Moor was 
more robust and brawny than was common with 
his countrymen. His visor was closed ; he bore 
a huge buckler and a ponderous lance ; his scimi- 
ter was of a Damascus blade, and his richly orna- 
mented dagger was wrought by an artificer of 
Fez. He was known by his device to be Tarfe, 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 247 

the most insolent, yet valiant, of the Moslem 
warriors — the same who had hurled into the 
royal camp his lance, inscribed to the queen. As 
he rode slowly along in front of the army, his 
very steed, prancing with fiery eye and distended 
nostril, seemed to breathe defiance to the Chris- 
tians. 

" But what were the feelings of the Spanish 
cavaliers when they beheld, tied to the tail of 
his steed, and dragged in the dust, the very in- 
scription, *AvE ^ARiA,' which Hernan Perez 
del Pulgar had affixed to the door of the mosque ! 
A burst of horror and indignation broke forth 
from the army. Hernan was not at hand, to 
maintain his previous achievement ; but one of 
his young companions in arms, Garcilasso de la 
Vega by name, putting spurs to his horse, gal- 
loped to the hamlet of Zubia, threw himself on 
his knees before the king, and besought permis- 
sion to accept the defiance of this insolent infidel, 
and to revenge the insult offered to our Blessed 
Lady. The request was too pious to be refused. 
Garcilasso remounted his steed, closed his helmet, 
graced by four sable plumes, grasped his buck- 
ler of Flemish workmanship, and his lance of 
matchless temper, and defied the haughty Moor 
in the midst of his career. A combat took place 
in view of the two armies and of the Castilian 
court. The Moor was powerful in wielding his 



248 WASETNGTON IRVING. 

weapons, and dexterous in managing his steed* 
He was of larger frame than Garcilasso, and 
more completely armed, and the Christians trem- 
bled for their champion. The shock of their 
encounter was dreadful ; their lances were shiv- 
ered, and sent up splinters in the air. Garcilasso 
was thrown back in his saddle — his horse made 
a wide career before he could recover, gather up 
the reins, and return to the conflict. They now 
encountered each other with swords. The Moor 
circled round his opponent, as a hawk circles 
when about to make a swoop ; his steed obeyed 
his rider with matchless quickness ; at every at- 
tack of the infidel, it seemed as if the Christian 
knidit must sink beneath his flashincj scimiter. 
But if Garcilasso was inferior to him in power, 
he was superior in agility; many of his blows 
he parried ; others he received upon his Flemish 
shield, which was proof against the Damascus 
blade. The blood streamed from numerous 
wounds received by either warrior. The Moor, 
seeing his antagonist exhausted, availed himself 
of his superior force, and, grappling, endeavored 
to wrest him from his saddle. They both fell to 
earth ; the Moor placed his knee upon the breast 
of his victim, and, brandishing his dagger, aimed 
a blow at his throat. A cry of despair was ut- 
tered by the Christian warriors, when suddenly 
they beheld the Moor rolling lifeless in the dust. 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 249 

Garcilasso had shortened his sword, and, as his 
adversary raised his arm to strike, had pierced 
him to the heart. ' It was a singular and mirac- 
ulous victory,' says Fray Antonio Agapida ; ' but 
the Christian knight was armed by the sacred 
nature of his cause, and the Holy Virgin gave 
him strength, like another David, to slay this 
gigantic champion of the Gentiles.' 

" The laws of chivalry were observed through- 
out the combat — no one interfered on either 
side. Garcilasso now despoiled his adversary ; 
then, rescuing the holy inscription of ' Ave 
Maria ' from its degrading situation, he elevated 
it on the point of his sword, and bore it off as a 
signal of triumph, amidst the rapturous shouts 
of the Christian army. 

" The sun had now reached the meridian, and 
the hot blood of the Moors was inflamed by its 
rays, and by the sight of the defeat of their 
champion. Muza ordered two pieces of ordnance 
to open a fire upon the Christians. A confusion 
was produced in one part of their ranks : Muza 
called to the chiefs of the army, ' Let us waste 
no more time in empty challenges — let us charge 
upon the enemy : he who assaults has always an 
advantage in the combat.' So saying, he rushed 
forward, followed by a large body of horse and 
foot, and charged so furiously upon the advance 
guard of the Christians, that he drove it in upon 
the battalion of the Marques of Cadiz. 



250 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

" The gallant marques now considered himself 
absolved from all further obedience to the queen's 
commands. He gave the signal to attack. ' San- 
tiago ! ' was shouted along the line ; and he pressed 
forward to the encounter, with his battalion of 
twelve hundred lances. The other cavaliers fol- 
lowed his example, and the battle instantly be- 
came general. 

" When the king and queen beheld the armies 
thus rushing to the combat, they threw them- 
selves on their knees, and implored the Holy Vir- 
gin to protect her faithful warriors. The prince 
and princess, the ladies of the court, and the prel- 
ates and friars who were present, did the same ; 
and the effect of the prayers of these illustrious 
and saintly persons was immediately apparent. 
The fierceness with which the Moors had rushed 
to the attack was suddenly cooled ; they were 
bold and adroit for a skirmish, but unequal to the 
veteran Spaniards in the open field. A panic 
seized upon the foot-soldiers — they turned and 
took to flight. Muza and his cavaliers in vain 
endeavored to rally them. Some took refuge in 
the mountains ; but the greater part fled to the 
city, in such confusion that they overturned and 
trampled upon each other. The Christians pur- 
sued them to the very gates. Upwards of two 
thousand were either killed, wounded, or taken 
prisoners ; and the two pieces of ordnance were 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 251 

brought off as trophies of the victory. Not a 
Christian lance but was bathed that day in the 
blood of an infidel. 

" Such was the brief but bloody action which 
was known among the Christian warriors by the 
name of " The Queen's Skirmish ; " for when the 
Marques of Cadiz waited upon her majesty to 
apologize for breaking her commands, he attrib- 
uted the victory entirely to her presence. The 
queen, however, insisted that it was all owing to 
her troops being led on by so valiant a com- 
mander. Her majesty had not yet recovered 
from her agitation at beholding so terrible a 
scene of bloodshed, though certain veterans pres- 
ent pronounced it as gay and gentle a skirmish 
as they had ever witnessed." 

The charm of '' The Alhambra " is largely 
in the leisurely, loitering, dreamy spirit in 
which the temporary American resident of 
the ancient palace-fortress entered into its 
mouldering beauties and romantic associa- 
tions, and in the artistic skill with which 
he wove the commonplace daily life of his 
attendants there into the more brilliant 
woof of its past. The book abounds in de- 
lightful legends, and yet these are all so 
touched with the author's airy humor that 
our credulity is never overtaxed ; we imbibe 



252 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

all the romantic interest of the place with- 
out for a moment losing our hold upon re- 
ality. The enchantments of this Moorish 
paradise become part of our mental pos- 
sessions, without the least shock to our 
common sense. After a few days of resi- 
dence in the part of the Alhambra occupied 
by Dame Tia Antonia and her family, of 
which the handmaid Dolores was the most 
fascinating member, Irving succeeded in es- 
tablishing himself in a remote and vacant 
part of the vast pile, in a suite of delicate 
and elegant chambers, with secluded gar- 
dens and fountains, that had once been oc- 
cupied by the beautiful Elizabeth of Far- 
nese, daughter of the Duke of Parma, and 
more than four centuries ago by a Moorish 
beauty named Lindaraxa, who flourished 
in the court of Muhamed the Left- Handed. 
These solitary and ruined chambers had 
their own terrors and enchantments, and 
for the first nights gave the author little 
but sinister suggestions and grotesque food 
for his imagination. But familiarity dis- 
persed the gloom and the superstitious fan- 
cies. 

" In the course of a few evenings a thorough 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 253 

change took place in the scene and its associa- 
tions. The moon, which when I took possession 
of my new apartments was invisible, gradually 
gained each evening upon the darkness of the 
night, and at length rolled in full splendor above 
the towers, pouring a flood of tempered light 
into every court and hall. The garden beneath 
my window, before wrapped in gloom, was gently 
lighted up ; the orange and citron trees were 
tipped with silver ; the fountain sparkled in the 
moonbeams, and even the blush of the rose was 
faintly visible. 

" I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic in- 
scription on the walls, : ' How beauteous is this 
garden ; where the flowers of the earth vie with 
the stars of heaven. What can compare with 
the vase of yon alabaster fountain filled with 
crystal water? nothing but the moon in her 
fullness, shining in the midst of an unclouded 
sky!' 

" On such heavenly nights I would sit for hours 
at my window inhaling the sweetness of the gar- 
den, and musing on the checkered fortunes of 
those whose history was dimly shadowed out in 
the elegant memorials around. Sometimes, when 
all was quiet, and the clock from the distant ca- 
thedral of Granada struck the midnight hour, I 
have sallied out on another tour and wandered 
over the whole building ; but how different from 



254 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

my first tour ! No longer dark and mysterious ; 
no longer peopled with shadowy foes ; no longer 
recalling scenes of violence and murder ; all was 
open, spacious, beautiful ; everything called up 
pleasing and romantic fancies ; Lindaraxa once 
more walked in her garden ; the gay chivalry of 
Moslem Granada once more glittered about the 
Court of Lions ! Who can do justice to a moon- 
light night in such a climate and such a place ? 
The temperature of a summer midnight in An- 
dalusia is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up 
into a purer atmosphere ; we feel a serenity of 
soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of frame, 
which render mere existence happiness. But 
when moonlight is added to all this, the effect 
is like enchantment. Under its plastic sway the 
Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories. 
Every rent and chasm of time, every moulder- 
ing tint and weather-stain, is gone; the marble 
resumes its original whiteness ; the long colon- 
nades brighten in the moonbeams ; the halls are 
illuminated with a softened radiance, — we tread 
the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale ! 

" What a delight, at such a time, to ascend to 
the little airy pavilion of the queen's toilet (el 
tocador de la reyna), which, like a bird-cage, 
overhangs the valley of the Darro, and gaze from 
its light arcades upon the moonlight prospect ! 
To the right, the swelling mountains of the 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 255 

Sierra Nevada, robbed of their ruggedness and 
softened into a fairy land, with their snowy sum- 
mits gleaming like silver clouds against the deep 
blue sky. And then to lean over the parapet of 
the Tocador and gaze down upon Granada and 
the Albaycin spread out like a map below ; all 
buried in deep repose ; the white palaces and 
convents sleeping in the moonshine, and beyond 
all these the vapory vega fading away like a 
dreamland in the distance. 

" Sometimes the faint click of castanets rise 
from the Alameda, where some gay Andalusians 
are dancing away the summer night. Sometimes 
the dubious tones of a guitar and the notes of 
an amorous voice, tell perchance the whereabout 
of some moonstruck lover serenading his lady's 
window. 

" Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights 
I have passed loitering about the courts and halls 
and balconies of this most suggestive pile ; ' feed- 
ing my fancy with sugared suppositions,' and en- 
joying that mixture of reverie and sensation which 
steal away existence in a southern climate ; so 
that it has been almost morning before I have 
retired to bed, and been lulled to sleep by the 
falling waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa." 

One of the writer's vantage points of ob- 
servation was a balcony of the central win- 



256 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

dow of the Hall of Ambassadors, from 
which he had a magnificent prospect of 
mountain, valley, and vega, and could look 
down upon a busy scene of human life in 
an alameda, or public walk, at the foot of 
the hill, and the suburb of the city, filling 
the narrow gorge below. Here the author 
used to sit for hours, weaving histories out 
of the casual incidents passing under his 
eye, and the occupations of the busy mor- 
tals below. The following passage exhibits 
his power in transmuting the commonplace 
life of the present into material perfectly in 
keeping with the romantic associations of 
the place : — 

" There was scarce a pretty face or a striking 
figure that I daily saw, about which I had not 
thus gradually framed a dramatic story, though 
some of my characters would occasionally act in 
direct opposition to the part assigned them, and 
disconcert the whole drama. Reconnoitring one 
day with my glass the streets of the Albaycin, I 
beheld the procession of a novice about to take 
the veil ; and remarked several circumstances 
which excited the strongest sympathy in the fate 
of the youthful being thus about to be consigned 
to a living tomb. I ascertained to my satisfaction 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 257 

that she was beautiful, and, from the paleness of 
her cheek, that she was a victim rather than a 
votary. She was arrayed in bridal garments, 
and decked with a chajDlet of white flowers, but 
her heart evidently revolted at this mockery of a 
spiritual union, and yearned after its earthly 
loves. A tall stern-looking man walked near 
her in the procession : it was, of course, the ty- 
rannical father, who, from some bigoted or sordid 
motive, had compelled this sacrifice. Amid the 
crowd was a dark handsome youth, in Andalusian 
garb, who seemed to fix on her an eye of agony. 
It was doubtless the secret lover from whom she 
was forever to be separated. My indignation rose 
as I noted the malignant expression painted on 
the countenances of the attendant monks and 
friars. The procession arrived at the chapel of 
the convent ; the sun gleamed for the last time 
upon the chaplet of the poor novice, as she crossed 
the fatal threshold and disappeared within the 
building. The throng poured in with cowl, and 
cross, and minstrelsy ; the lover paused for a 
moment at the door. I could divine the tumult 
of his feelings ; but he mastered them, and en- 
tered. There was a long interval. I pictured to 
myself the scene passing within : the poor novice 
despoiled of her transient finery, and clothed in 
the conventual garb; the bridal chaplet taken 
from her brow, and her beautiful head shorn of 
17 



258 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

its long silken tresses. I heard her murmur the 
irrevocable vow. I saw her extended on a bier ; 
the death-pall spread over her ; the funeral serv- 
ice performed that proclaimed her dead to the 
world ; her sighs were drowned in the deep tones 
of the organ, and the plaintive requiem of the 
nuns ; the father looked on, unmoved, without a 
tear; the lover — no — my imagination refused 
to portray the anguish of the lover — there the 
picture remained a blank. 

" After a time the throng again poured forth 
and dispersed various ways, to enjoy the light 
of the sun and mingle with the stirring scenes of 
life ; but the victim, with her bridal chaplet, was 
no longer there. The door of the convent closed 
that severed her from the world forever. I saw 
the father and the lover issue forth ; they were 
in earnest conversation. The latter was vehe- 
ment in his gesticulations ; I expected some vio- 
lent termination to my drama ; but an angle of a 
buUding interfered and closed the scene. My 
eye afterwards was frequently turned to that con- 
vent with painful interest. I remarked late at 
night a solitary light twinkling from a remote 
lattice of one of its towers. * There,' said I, 
* the unhappy nun sits weeping in her cell, while 
perhaps her lover paces the street below in un- 
availing anguish.' 

" — The officious Mateo interrupted my medi- 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 259 

tations and destroyed in an instant the cobweb 
tissue of my fancy. With his usual zeal he had 
gathered facts concerning the scene, which put 
my fictions all to flight. The heroine of my ro- 
mance was neither young nor handsome ; she 
had no lover; she had entered the convent of 
her own free will, as a respectable asylum, and 
was one of the most cheerful residents within 
its walls. 

" It was some little while before I could forgive 
the wrong done me by the nun in being thus 
happy in her cell, in contradiction to all the rules 
of romance ; I diverted my spleen, however, by 
watching, for a day or two, the pretty coquetries 
of a dark-eyed brunette, who, from the covert of 
a balcony shrouded with flowering shrubs and a 
silken awning, was carrying on a mysterious cor- 
respondence with a handsome, dark, well-whis- 
kered cavalier, who lurked frequently in the 
street beneath her window. Sometimes I saw 
him at an early hour, stealing forth wrapped to 
the eyes in a mantle. Sometimes he loitered at 
a corner, in various disguises, apparently waiting 
for a private signal to slip into the house. Then 
there was the tinkling of a guitar at night, and 
a lantern shifted from place to place in the bal- 
cony. I imagined another intrigue like that of 
Almaviva, but was again disconcerted in all my 
suppositions. The supposed lover turned out to 



260 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

be the husband of the lady, and a noted contra- 
bandista ; and all his mysterious signs and move- 
ments had doubtless some smuggling scheme in 
view 

" — I occasionally amused myself with noting 
from this balcony the gradual changes of the 
scenes below, according to the different stages of 
the day. 

" Scarce has the gray dawn streaked the sky, 
and the earliest cock crowed from the cottages of 
the hill-side, when the suburbs give sign of re- 
viving animation ; for the fresh hours of dawn- 
ing are precious in the summer season in a sultry 
climate. All are anxious to get the start of the 
sun, in the business of the day. The muleteer 
drives forth his loaded train for the journey ; the 
traveler slings his carbine behind his saddle, 
and mounts his steed at the gate of the hostel; 
the brown peasant from the country urges for- 
ward his loitering beasts, laden with panniers of 
sunny fruit and fresh dewy vegetables, for already 
the thrifty housewives are hastening to the 
market. 

" The sun is up and sparkles along the valley, 
tipping the transparent foliage of the groves. 
The matin bells resound melodiously through the 
pure bright air, announcing the hour of devotion. 
The muleteer halts his burdened animals before 
the chapel, thrusts his staff through his belt be- 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 261 

hind, and enters with hat in hand, smoothing his 
coal-black hair, to hear a mass, and to put up a 
prayer for a prosperous wayfaring across the 
sierra. And now steals forth on fairy foot the 
gentle Seiiora, in trim basquina, with restless fan 
in hand, and dark eye flashing from beneath the 
gracefully folded mantilla ; she seeks some well- 
frequented church to offer up her morning orisons ; 
but the nicely adjusted dress, the dainty shoe 
and cobweb stocking, the raven tresses exquisitely 
braided, the fresh-plucked rose, gleaming among 
them like a gem, show that earth divides with 
Heaven the empire of her thoughts. Keep an 
eye upon her; careful mother, or virgin aunt, or 
vigilant duenna, whichever you may be, that 
walk behind ! 

« As the morning advances, the din of labor aug- 
ments on every side ; the streets are thronged 
with man, and steed, and beast of burden, and 
there is a hum and murmur, like the surges of 
the ocean. As the sun ascends to his meridian, 
the hum and bustle gradually decline; at the 
height of noon there is a pause. The panting 
city sinks into lassitude, and for several hours 
there is a general repose. The windows are 
closed, the curtains drawn, the inhabtants retired 
into the coolest recesses of their mansions ; the 
full-fed monk snores in his dormitory ; the brawny 
porter lies stretched on the pavement beside his 



262 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

burden ; the peasant and the laborer sleep be- 
neath the trees of the Alameda, lulled by the 
sultry chirping of the locust. The streets are 
deserted, except by the water-carrier, who re- 
freshes the ear by proclaiming the merits of his 
sparkling beverage, * colder than the mountain 
snow (masfria que la nieve).^ 

" As the sun declines, there is again a gradual 
reviving, and when the vesper bell rings out his 
sinking knell, all nature seems to rejoice that the 
tyrant of the day has fallen. Now begins the 
bustle of enjoyment, when the citizens pour forth 
to breathe the evening air, and revel away the 
brief twilight in the walks and gardens of the 
Darro and Xenil. 

" As night closes, the capricious scene assumes 
new features. Light after light gradually twink- 
les forth ; here a taper from a balconied window ; 
there a votive lamp before the image of a saint. 
Thus, by degrees, the city emerges from the per- 
vading gloom, and sparkles with scattered lights, 
like the starry firmament. Now break forth 
from court and garden, and street and lane, the 
tinkling of innumerable guitars, and the clicking 
of castanets ; blending, at this lofty height, in a 
faint but general concert. * Enjoy the moment ' 
is the creed of the gay and amorous Andalusian, 
and at no time does he practice it more zealously 
than on the balmy nights of summer, wooing his 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 263 

mistress with the dance, the love-ditty, and the 
passionate serenade." 

How perfectly is the illusion of departed 
splendor maintained in the opening of the 
chapter on " The Court of Lions." 

" The peculiar charm of this old dreamy palace 
is its power of calling up vague reveries and 
picturings of the past, and thus clothing naked 
realities with the illusions of the memory and the 
imagination. As I delight to walk in these 
* vain shadows,' I am prone to seek those parts 
of the Alhambra which are most favorable to 
this phantasmagoria of the mind; and none 
are more so than the Court of Lions, and its 
surrounding halls. Here the hand of time has 
fallen the lightest, and the traces of Moorish 
elegance and splendor exist in almost their orig- 
inal brilliancy. Earthquakes have shaken the 
foundations of this pile, and rent its rudest tow- 
ers ; yet see ! not one of those slender columns 
has been displaced, not an arch of that light and 
fragile colonnade given way, and all the fairy 
fretwork of these domes, apparently as unsub- 
stantial as the crystal fabrics of a morning's frost, 
exist after the lapse of centuries, almost as fresh 
as if from the hand of the Moslem artist. I 
write in the midst of these mementos of the past, 
in the fresh hour of early morning, in the fated 



264 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Hall of tlie Abencerrages. The blood-stained 
fountain, the legendary monument of their mas- 
sacre, is before me ; the lofty jet almost casts 
its dew upon my paper. How difficult to recon- 
cile the ancient tale of violence and blood with 
the gentle and peaceful scene around! Every- 
thing here appears calculated to inspire kind and 
happy feelings, for everything is delicate and 
beautiful. The very light falls tenderly from 
above, through the lantern of a dome tinted and 
wrought as if by fairy hands. Through the am- 
ple and fretted arch of the portal I behold the 
Court of Lions, with brilliant sunshine gleaming 
along its colonnades and sparkling in its fountains. 
The lively swallow dives into the court, and, 
rising with a surge, darts away twittering over 
the roofs ; the busy bee toils humming among 
the flower-beds ; and painted butterflies hover 
from plant to plant, and flutter up and sport with 
each other in the sunny air. It needs but a 
slight exertion of the fancy to picture some pen- 
sive beauty of the harem loitering in these se- 
cluded haunts of Oriental luxury. 

" He, however, who would behold this scene 
under an aspect more in unison with its fortunes, 
let him come when the shadows of evening tem- 
per the brightness of the court, and throw a gloom 
into the surroundiug halls. Then nothing can 
be more serenely melancholy, or more in har- 
mony with the tale of departed grandeur. 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 265 

" At such times I am apt to seek the Hall of 
Justice, whose deep shadowy arcades extend across 
the upper end of the court. Here was per- 
formed, in presence of Ferdinand and Isabella and 
their triumphant court, the pompous ceremonial 
of high mass, on taking possession of the Alham- 
bra. The very cross is still to be seen upon the 
wall, where the altar was erected, and where 
officiated the Grand Cardinal of Spain, and others 
of the highest religious dignitaries of the land. 
I picture to myself the scene when this place was 
filled with the conquering host, that mixture of 
mitred prelate and shaven monk, and steel-clad 
knio-ht and silken courtier; when crosses and 
crosiers and religious standards were mingled 
with proud armorial ensigns and the banners of 
the haughty chiefs of Spain, and flaunted in tri- 
umph through these Moslem halls. I picture to 
myself Columbus, the future discoverer of a 
world, taking his modest stand in a remote cor- 
ner, the humble and neglected spectator of the 
pageant. I see in imagination the Catholic sov- 
ereigns prostrating themselves before the altar, 
and pouring forth thanks for their victory ; while 
the vaults resound with sacred minstrelsy and the 
deep-toned Te Deum. 

" The transient illusion is over, — the pageant 
melts from the fancy, — monarch, priest, and 
warrior return into oblivion with the poor Mos- 



266 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

lems over whom they exulted. The hall of their 
triumph is waste and desolate. The bat flits 
about its twilight vault, and the owl hoots from 
the neighboring tower of Comares." 

It is a Moslem tradition that the court 
and army of Boabdil, the Unfortunate, the 
last Moorish King of Granada, are shut up 
in the mountain by a powerful enchant- 
ment, and that it is written in the book of 
fate that when the enchantment is broken, 
Boabdil will descend from the mountain at 
the head of his army, resume hie throne in 
the Alhambra, and gathering together the 
enchanted warriors from all parts of Spain, 
reconquer the Peninsula. Nothing in this 
volume is more amusing and at the same 
time more poetic and romantic than the 
story of " Governor Manco and the Soldier," 
in which this legend is used to cover the 
exploit of a dare-devil contrabandista. But 
it is too long to quote. I take, therefore, 
another story, which has something of the 
same elements, that of a merry, mendicant 
student of Salamanca, Don Vicente by 
name, who wandered from village to village, 
and picked up a living by playing the guitar 
for the peasants, among whom he was sure 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 267 

of a hearty welcome. In the course of his 
wandering he had found a seal-ring, having 
for its device the cabalistic sign, invented 
by King Solomon the Wise, and of mighty 
power in all cases of enchantment. 

" At length he arrived at the great object of his 
musical vagabondizing, the far-famed city of 
Granada, and hailed with wonder and delight its 
Moorish towers, its lovely vega, and its snowy 
mountains glistening through a summer atmos- 
phere. It is needless to say with what eager 
curiosity he entered its gates and wandered 
through its streets, and gazed upon its Oriental 
monuments. Every female face peering through 
a window or beaming from a balcony was to him 
a Zorayda or a Zelinda, nor could he meet a 
stately dame on the Alameda but he was ready 
to fancy her a Moorish princess, and to spread 
his student's robe beneath her feet. 

" His musical talent, his happy humor, his youth 
and his good looks, won him a universal welcome 
in spite of his ragged robes, and for several days 
he led a gay life in the old Moorish capital and 
its environs. One of his occasional haunts was 
the fountain of Avellanos, in the valley of Darro. 
It is one of the popular resorts of Granada, and 
has been so since the days of the Moors ; and 
here the student had an opportunity of pursuing 



268 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

his studies of female beauty ; a branch of study 
to which he was a little prone. 

" Here he would take his seat with his guitar, 
improvise love-ditties to admiring groups of ma- 
jos and majas, or prompt with his music the ever- 
ready dance. He was thus engaged one evening 
when he beheld a padre of the church advancing, 
at whose approach every one touched the hat. 
He was evidently a man of consequence ; he cer- 
tainly was a mirror of good if not of holy liv- 
ing; robust and rosy-faced, and breathing at 
every pore with the warmth of the weather and 
the exercise of the walk. As he passed along 
he would every now and then draw a maravedi 
out of his pocket and bestow it on a beggar, with 
an air of signal beneficence. *Ah, the blessed 
father ! ' would be the cry ; ' long life to him, 
and may he soon be a bishop ! ' 

" To aid his steps in ascending the hill he leaned 
gently now and then on the arm of a handmaid, 
evidently the pet-lamb of this kindest of pastors. 
Ah, such a damsel ! Andalus from head to foot; 
from the rose in her hair, to the fairy shoe and 
lace work stocking ; Andalus in every movement ; 
in every undulation of the body : — ripe, melt- 
ing Andalus ! But then so modest ! — so shy ! 
— ever, with downcast eyes, listening to the 
words of the padre ; or, if by chance she let 
flash a side glance, it was suddenly checked and 
her eyes once more cast to the ground. 



TEE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 269 

*' The good padre looked benignantly on the 
company about the fountain, and took his seat 
with some emphasis on a stone bench, while the 
handmaid hastened to bring him a glass of spark- 
ling water. He sipped it deliberately and with 
a relish, tempering it with one of those spongy 
pieces of frosted eggs and sugar so dear to Span- 
ish epicures, and on returning the glass to the 
hand of the damsel pinched her cheek with in- 
finite loving-kindness. 

" ' Ah, the good pastor ! ' whispered the stu- 
dent to himself ; ' what a hapj^iness would it be 
to be gathered into his fold with such a pet-lamb 
for a companion ! ' 

" But no such good fare was likely to befall him. 
In vain he essayed those powers of pleasing 
which he had found so irresistible with country 
curates and country lasses. Never had he touched 
his guitar with such skill ; never had he poured 
forth more soul-moving ditties, but he had no 
longer a country curate or country lass to deal 
with. The worthy priest evidently did not rel- 
ish music, and the modest damsel never raised 
her eyes from the ground. They remained but 
a short time at the fountain ; the good padre has- 
tened their return to Granada. The damsel gave 
the student one shy glance in retiring ; but it 
plucked the heart out of his bosom ! 

" He inquired about them after they had gone. 



270 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Padre Tomas was one of the saints of Granada, 
a model of regularity ; punctual in his hour of 
rising ; his hour of taking a paseo for an appe- 
tite ; his hours of eating ; his hour of taking his 
siesta ; his hour of playing his game of tresillo, 
of an evening, with some of the dames of the 
cathedral circle ; his hour of supping, and his 
hour of retiring to rest, to gather fresh strength 
for another day's round of similar duties. He 
had an easy sleek mule for his riding ; a matronly 
housekeeper skilled in preparing tidbits for his 
table ; and the pet-lamb, to smooth his pillow at 
night and bring him his chocolate in the morn- 
ing. 

" Adieu now to the gay, thoughtless life of the 
student ; the side-glance of a bright eye had been 
the undoing of him. Day and night he could 
not get the image of this most modest damsel out 
of his mind. He sought the mansion of the pa- 
dre. Alas ! it was above the class of houses ac- 
cessible to a strolling student like himself. The 
worthy padre had no sympathy with him ; he 
had never been Estudiante sopista, obliged to sing 
for his supper. He blockaded the house by day, 
catching a glance of the damsel now and then as 
she appeared at a casement; but these glances 
only fed his flame without encouraging his hope. 
He serenaded her balcony at night, and at one 
time was flattered by the appearance of some- 



TEE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 271 

thing white at a window. Alas, it was only the 
night-cap of the padre. 

" Never was lover more devoted ; never damsel 
more shy : the poor student was reduced to de- 
spair. At length arrived the eve of St. John, 
when the lower classes of Granada swarm into 
the country, dance away the afternoon, and pass 
midsummer's night on the banks of the Darro 
and the Xenil. Happy are they who on this 
eventful night can wash their faces in those 
waters just as the cathedral bell tells midnight ; 
for at that precise moment they have a beautify- 
ing power. The student, having nothing to do, 
suffered himself to be carried away by the holi- 
day-seeking throng until he found himself in the 
narrow valley of the Darro, below the lofty hill 
and ruddy towers of the Alhambra. The dry 
bed of the river ; the rocks which border it ; the 
terraced gardens which overhang it, were alive 
with variegated groups, dancing under the vines 
and fig-trees to the sound of the guitar and cas- 
tanets. 

" The student remained for some time in dole- 
ful dumps, leaning against one of the huge mis- 
shapen stone pomegranates which adorn the ends 
of the little bridge over the Darro. He cast 
a wistful glance upon the merry scene, where 
every cavalier had his dame ; or, to speak more 
appropriately, every Jack his Jill ; sighed at his 



272 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

own solitary state, a victim to the black eye of 
the most unapproachable of damsels, and repined 
at his ragged garb, which seemed to shut the gate 
of hope against him. 

" By degrees his attention was attracted to 
a neighbor equally solitary with himself. This 
was a tall soldier, of a stern aspect and grizzled 
beard, who seemed posted as a sentry at the op- 
posite pomegranate. His face was bronzed by 
time ; he was arrayed in ancient Spanish armor, 
with buckler and lance, and stood immovable as 
a statue. What surprised the student was, that 
though thus strangely equipped, he was totally 
unnoticed by the passing throng, albeit that many 
almost brushed against him. 

" ' This is a city of old time peculiarities,* 
thought the student, 'and doubtless this is one 
of them with which the inhabitants are too fa- 
miliar to be surprised.' His own curiosity, how- 
ever, was awakened, and being of a social dis- 
position, he accosted the soldier. 

" * A rare old suit of armor that which you 
wear, comrade. May I ask what corps you be- 
long to ? ' 

" The soldier gasped out a reply from a pair of 
jaws which seemed to have rusted on their 
hinges. 

" ' The royal guard of Ferdinand and Isabella.' 

" * Santa Maria ! Why, it is three centuries 
since that corps was in service.' 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 273 

*' * And for three centuries have I been mount- 
ing guard. Now I trust my tour of duty draws 
to a close. Dost thou desire fortune ? ' 

"The student held up his tattered cloak in 
reply. 

" ' I understand thee. If thou hast faith and 
courage, follow me, and thy fortune is made.' 

" ' Softly, comrade, to follow thee would require 
small courage in one who has nothing to lose but 
life and an old guitar, neither of much value ; 
but my faith is of a different matter, and not to 
be put in temptation. If it be any criminal act 
by which I am to mend my fortune, think not my 
ragged cloak will make me undertake it.' 

" The soldier turned on him a look of high 
displeasure. * My sword,' said he, * has never 
been drawn but in the cause of the faith and the 
throne. I am a Oristiano viejo ; trust in me and 
fear no evil.' 

" The student followed him wondering. He ob- 
served that no one heeded their conversation, and 
that the soldier made his way through the vari- 
ous groups of idlers unnoticed, as if invisible. 

" Crossing the bridge, the soldier led the way 
by a narrow and steep path past a Moorish mill 
and aqueduct, and up the ravine which separates 
the domains of the Generalife from those of the 
Alhambra. The last ray of the sun shone upon 
the red battlements of the latter, which beetled 
18 



274 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

far above ; and the convent-bells were proclaim- 
ing the festival of the ensuing day. The ravine 
was overshadowed by fig-trees, vines, and myr- 
tles, and the outer towers and walls of the for- 
tress. It was dark and lonely, and the twilight- 
loving bats began to flit about. At length the 
soldier halted at a remote and ruined tower ap- 
parently intended to guard a Moorish aqueduct. 
He struck the foundation with the butt-end of his 
spear. A rumbling sound was heard, and the 
solid stones yawned apart, leaving an opening as 
wide as a door. 

" ' Enter in the name of the Holy Trinity, 
said the soldier, *and fear nothing.' The stu- 
dent's heart quaked, but he made the sign of the 
cross, muttered his Ave Maria, and followed his 
mysterious guide into a deep vault cut out of the 
solid rock under the tower, and covered with Ara- 
bic inscriptions. The soldier pointed to a stone 
seat hewn along one side of the vault. ' Be- 
hold,' said he, 'my couch for three hundred 
years.' The bewildered student tried to force a 
joke. ' By the blessed St. Anthony,' said he, 
'but you must have slept soundly, considering 
the hardness of your couch.' 

" ' On the contrary, sleep has been a stranger to 
these eyes ; incessant watchfulness has been my 
doom. Listen to my lot. I was one of the 
royal guards of Ferdinand and Isabella; but 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 275 

was taken prisoner by the Moors in one of their 
sorties, and confined a captive in this tower. 
When preparations were made to surrender the 
fortress to the Christian sovereigns, I was pre- 
vailed upon by an alfaqui, a Moorish priest, to 
aid him in secreting some of the treasures of 
Boabdil in this vault. I was justly punished for 
my fault. The alfaqui was an African necro- 
mancer, and by his infernal arts cast a spell upon 
me — to guard his treasures. Something must 
have happened to him, for he never returned, 
and here have I remained ever since, buried 
alive. Years and years have rolled away ; earth- 
quakes have shaken this hill ; I have heard stone 
by stone of the tower above tumbling to the 
ground, in the natural operation of time ; but 
the spell-bound walls of this vault set both time 
and earthquakes at defiance. 

" * Once every hundred years, on the festival 
of St. John, the enchantment ceases to have 
thorough sway ; I am permitted to go forth and 
post myself upon the bridge of the Darro, where 
you met me, waiting until some one shall arrive 
who may have power to break this magic spell. 
I have hitherto mounted guard there in vain. 
I walk as in a cloud, concealed from mortal sight. 
You are the first to accost me for now three hun- 
dred years. I behold the reason. I see on 
your finger the seal-ring of Solomon the Wise, 



276 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

which is proof against all enchantment. With 
you it remains to deliver me from this awful 
dungeon, or to leave me to keep guard here for 
anather hundred years.' 

" The student listened to this tale in mute won- 
derment. He had heard many tales of treasures 
shut up under strong enchantment in the vaults 
of the Alhambra, but had treated them as fables. 
He now felt the value of the seal-ring, which 
had, in a manner, been given to him by St. Cy- 
prian. Still, though armed by so potent a talis- 
man, it was an awful thing to find himself tete-a- 
tete in such a place with an enchanted soldier, 
who, according to the laws of nature, ought to 
have been quietly in his grave for nearly three 
centuries. 

" A personage of this kind, however, was quite 
out of the ordinary run, and not to be trifled 
with, and he assured him he might rely upon his 
friendship and good will to do everything in his 
power for his deliverance. 

" ' I trust to a motive more powerful than 
friendship,' said the soldier. 

" He pointed to a ponderous iron coffer, secured 
by locks inscribed with Arabic characters. ' That 
coffer,' said he, * contains countless treasure in 
gold and jewels and precious stones. Break the 
magic spell by which I am enthralled, and one 
half of this treasure shall be thine.' 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 277 

" ' But how am I do to it ? ' 

" ' The aid of a Christian priest and a Chris- 
tian maid is necessary. The priest to exorcise 
the powers of darkness ; the damsel to touch 
this chest with the seal of Solomon. This must 
be done at night. But have a care. This is 
solemn work, and not to be effected by the car- 
nal-minded. The priest must be a Cristiano 
viejo, a model of sanctity ; and must mortify the 
flesh before he comes here, by a rigorous fast of 
four-and-twenty hours : and as to the maiden, she 
must be above reproach, and proof against temp- 
tation. Linger not in finding such aid. In three 
days my furlough is at an end ; if not delivered 
before midnight of the third, I shall have to 
mount guard for another century.' 

" ' Fear not,' said the student, ' I have in my 
eye the very priest and damsel you describe ; but 
how am I to regain admission to this tower ? ' 

" ' The seal of Solomon will open the way for 
thee.' 

" The student issued forth from the tower much 
more gayly than he had entered. The wall 
closed behind him, and remained solid as before. 

" The next morning he repaired boldly to the 
mansion of the priest, no longer a poor strolling 
student, thrumming his way with a guitar ; but 
an ambassador from the shadowy world, with en- 
chanted treasures to bestow. No particulars are 



278 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

told of his negotiation, excepting that the zeal 
of the worthy priest was easily kindled at the 
idea of rescuing an old soldier of the faith and 
a strong box of King Chico from the very 
clutches of Satan ; and then what alms might be 
dispensed, what churches built, and how many 
poor relatives enriched with the Moorish treas- 
ure ! 

" As to the immaculate handmaid, she was 
ready to lend her hand, which was all that was 
required, to the pious work ; and if a shy glance 
now and then might be believed, the ambassador 
began to find favor in her modest eyes. 

" The greatest difficulty, however, was the fast 
to which the good padre had to subject himself. 
Twice he attempted it, and twice the flesh was 
too strong for the spirit. It was only on the 
third day that he was enabled to withstand the 
temptations of the cupboard ; but it was still a 
question whether he would hold out until the 
spell was broken. 

" At a late hour of the night the party groped 
their way up the ravine by the light of a lantern, 
and bearing a basket with provisions for exorcis- 
ing the demon of hunsjer so soon as the other 
demons should be laid in the Red Sea. 

" The seal of Solomon opened their way into 
the tower. They found the soldier seated on the 
enchanted strong-box, awaiting their arrival. The 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 279 

exorcism was performed in due style. The dam- 
sel advanced and touched the locks of the coffer 
with the seal of Solomon. The lid flew open ; 
and such treasures of gold and jewels and pre- 
cious stones as flashed upon the eye ! 

" ' Here 's cut and come again ! ' cried the stu- 
dent, exultingly, as he proceeded to cram his 
pockets. 

" ' Fairly and softly,' exclaimed the soldier. 
* Let us get the coffer out entire, and then di- 
vide.' 

" They accordingly went to work with might 
and main ; but it was a difficult task ; the chest 
was enormously heavy, and had been imbedded 
there for centuries. While they were thus em- 
ployed the good dominie drew on one side and 
made a vigorous onslaught on the basket, by way 
of exorcising the demon of hunger which was rag- 
ing in his entrails. In a little while a fat capon 
was devoured, and washed down by a deep pota- 
tion of Val de penas ; and, by way of grace after 
meat, he gave a kind-hearted kiss to the pet-lamb 
who waited on him. It was quietly done in a 
corner, but the tell-tale walls babbled it forth as if 
in triumph. Never was chaste salute more awful 
in its effects. At the sound the soldier gave a 
great cry of despair ; the coffer, which was half 
raised, fell back in its place and was locked once 
more. Priest, student, and damsel found them- 



280 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

selves outside of the tower, the wall of which 
closed with a thundering jar. Alas ! the good 
padre had broken his fast too soon ! 

" When recovered from his surprise, the student 
would have reentered the tower, but learnt to his 
dismay that the damsel, in her fright, had let fall 
the seal of Solomon ; it remained within the 
vault. 

" In a word, the cathedral bell tolled midnight ; 
the spell was renewed ; the soldier was doomed 
to mount guard for another hundred years, and 
there he and the treasure remain to this day — 
and all because the kind-hearted padre kissed his 
handmaid. ' Ah, father ! father ! ' said the stu- 
dent, shaking his head ruefully, as they returned 
down the ravine, * I fear there was less of the 
saint than the sinner in that kiss ! ' 

" Thus ends the legend as far as it has been au- 
thenticated. There is a tradition, however, that 
the student had brought off treasure enough in 
his pocket to set him up in the world ; that he 
prospered in his affairs, that the worthy padre 
gave him the pet-lamb in marriage, by way of 
amends for the blunder in the vault ; that the 
immaculate damsel proved a pattern for wives 
as she had been for handmaids, and bore her hus- 
band a numerous progeny ; that the first was a 
wonder ; it was born seven months after her mar- 



THE CHARACTERISTIC WORKS. 281 

riage, and though a seven-months' boy, was the 
sturdiest of the flock. The rest were all born 
in the ordinary course of time. 

" The story of the enchanted soldier remains 
one of the popular traditions of Granada, though 
told in a variety of ways ; the common people 
affirm that he still mounts guard on mid-summer 
eve, beside the gigantic stone pomegranate on 
the bridge of the Darro ; but remains invisible 
excepting to such lucky mortal as may possess 
the seal of Solomon." 

These passages from the most character- 
istic of Irving's books, do not by any means 
exhaust his variety, but they afford a fair 
measure of his purely literary skill, upon 
which his reputation must rest. To my 
apprehension this " charm " in literature is 
as necessary to the amelioration and en- 
joyment of human life as the more solid 
achievements of scholarship. That Irving 
should find it in the prosaic and material- 
istic conditions of the New World as well 
as in the tradition-laden atmosphere of the 
Old, is evidence that he possessed genius of 
a refined and subtle quality if not of the 
most robust order. 



CHAPTER X. 

LAST YEARS : THE CHAEACTER OF HIS 
LITERATURE. 

The last years of Irving's life, altliough 
full of activity and enjoyment, — abated 
only by the malady which had so long tor- 
mented hi in, — offer little new in the de- 
velopment of his character, and need not 
much longer detain us. The calls of friend- 
ship and of honor were many, his corre- 
spondence was large, he made many excur- 
sions to scenes that were filled with pleas- 
ant memories, going even as far south as 
Virginia, and he labored assiduously at the 
" Life of Washington," — attracted how- 
ever now and then by some other tempting 
theme. But his delight was in the domes- 
tic circle at Sunnyside. It was not possi- 
ble that his occasional melancholy vein 
should not be deepened by change and 
death and the lengthening shade of old age. 
Yet I do not know the closing days of any 



LAST YEARS. 283 

other author of note that were more cheer- 
ful, serene, and happy than his. Of our 
author, in these latter days, Mr. George 
William Curtis put recently into his "Easy 
Chair " papers an artistically-touched little 
portrait : " Irving was as quaint a figure," 
be says, " as the Diedrich Knickerbocker in 
the preliminary advertisement of the ' His- 
tory of New York.' Thirty years ago he 
might have been seen on an autumnal after- 
noon tripping with an elastic step along 
Broadway, with ' low-quartered ' shoes neatly 
tied, and a Talma cloak —a short garment 
that hung from the shoulders like the capo 
of a coat. There was a chirping, cheery, 
old-school air in his appearance which was 
undeniably Dutch, and most harmonious 
with the associations of his writing. He 
seemed, indeed, to have stepped out of his 
own books ; and the cordial grace and hu- 
mor of his address, if he stopped for a pass- 
ing chat, were delightfully characteristic. 
He was then our most famous man of let- 
ters, but he was simply free from all self- 
consciousness and assumption and dogma- 
tism." Congenial occupation was one secret 
of Irving's cheerfulness and contentment, 



284 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

no doubt. And he was called away as soon 
as his task was done, very soon after the 
last volume of the " Washington " issued 
from the press. Yet he lived long enough 
to receive the hearty approval of it from 
the literary men whose familiarity with the 
Revolutionary period made them the best 
judges of its merits. 

He had time also to revise his works. It 
is perhaps worthy of note that for several 
years, while he was at the height of his 
popularity, his books had very little sale. 
From 1842 to 1848 they were out of print, 
with the exception of some stray copies of 
a cheap Philadelphia edition, and a Paris 
collection (a volume of this, at my hand, is 
one of a series entitled a " Collection of 
Ancient and Modern British Authors"), 
they were not to be found. The Philadel- 
phia publishers did not think there was 
sufficient demand to warrant a new edition. 
Mr. Irving and his friends judged the mar- 
ket more wisely, and a young New York 
publisher offered to assume the responsibil- 
ity. This was Mr. George P. Putnam. 
The event justified his sagacity and his lib- 
eral enterprise ; from July, 1848, to Novem- 



CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. 285 

ber, 1859, the author received on his copy- 
right over eighty-eight thousand dollars. 
And it should be added that the relations 
between author and publisher, both in pros- 
perity and in times of business disaster, re- 
flect the highest credit upon both. If the 
like relations always obtained we should 
not have to say : " May the Lord pity the 
authors in this world, and the publishers in 
the next." 

I have outlined the life of Washington Ir- 
ving in vain, if we have not already come to 
a tolerably clear conception of the character 
of the man and of his books. If I were ex- 
actly to follow his literary method I should 
do nothing more. The idiosyncrasies of 
the man are the strength and weakness of 
his works. I do not know any other author 
whose writings so perfectly reproduce his 
character, or whose character may be more 
certainly measured by his writings. His 
character is perfectly transparent : his pre- 
dominant traits were humor and sentiment; 
his temperament was gay with a dash of 
melancholy; his inner life and his mental 
operations were the reverse of complex, and 



286 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

his literary method is simple. ^Qfelt his 
subject, and he expressed his conception 
not so much by direct statement or descrip- 
tion as by almost imperceptible touches 
and shadings here and there, by a diffused 
tone and color, with very little show of anal- 
ysis. Perhaps it is a sufficient definition 
to say that his method was the sympa- 
thetic. In the end the reader is put in pos- 
session of the luminous and complete idea 
upon which the author has been brooding, 
though he may not be able to say exactly 
how the impression has been conveyed to 
him ; and I doubt if the author could have 
explained his sympathetic process. He cer- 
tainly would have lacked precision in any 
philosophical or metaphysical theme, and 
when, in his letters, he touches upon politics 
there is a little vagueness of definition that 
indicates want of mental grip in that direc- 
tion. But in the region of feeling his genius 
is sufficient to his purpose ; either when 
that purpose is a highly creative one, as in 
the character and achievements of his Dutch 
heroes, or merely that of portraiture, as in 
the " Columbus " and the " Washington." 
The analysis of a nature so simple and a 



CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. 287 

character so transparent as Irving's, who 
lived in the sunlight and had no envelope 
of mystery, has not the fascination that at- 
taches to Hawthorne. 

/Although the direction of his work as a 
man of letters was largely determined by 
his early surroundings, — that is, by his 
birth in a land void of traditions, and into 
a society without much literary life, so that 
his intellectual food was of necessity a for- 
eign literature that was at the moment be- 
coming a little antiquated in the land of its 
birth, and his warm imagination was forced 
to revert to the past for that nourishment 
which his crude environment did not offer, — 
yet he was by nature a retrospective man^^ 
His face was set towards the past, not tow- 
ards the future. He never caught the rest- 
lessness of this century, nor the prophetic 
light that shone in the faces of Coleridge, 
Shelley, and Keats ; if he apprehended the 
stir of the new spirit he still, by mental 
affiliation, belonged rather to the age of 
Addison than to that of Macaulay. And 
his placid, retrospective, optimistic strain 
pleased a public that were excited and har- 
rowed by the mocking and lamenting of 



288 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Lord Byron, and, singularly enough, pleased 
even the great pessimist himself. 

His writings induce to reflection, to quiet 
musing, to tenderness for tradition ; they 
amuse, they entertain, they call a check to 
the feverishness of modern life ; but they 
are rarely stimulating or suggestive. They 
are better adapted, it must be owned, to 
please the many than the critical few, who 
demand more incisive treatment and a deeper 
consideration of the problems of life. And 
it is very fortunate that a writer who can 
reach the great public and entertain it can 
also elevate and refine its tastes, set before 
it high ideas, instruct it agreeably, and all 
this in a style that belongs to the best liter- 
ature. It is a safe model for young read- 
ers ; and for young readers there is very 
little in the overwhelming flood of to-day 
that is comparable to Irving's books, and, 
especially, it seems to me, because they 
were not written for children. 

Irving's position in American literature, 
or in that of the English tongue, will only 
be determined by the slow settling of opin- 
ion, which no critic can foretell, and the 
operation of which no criticism seems able 



CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. 289 

to explain. I venture to believe, however, 
that the verdict will not be in accord with 
much of the present prevalent criticism. 
<^The service that he rendered to American 
letters no critic disputes ; nor is there any 
question of our national indebtedness to him 
for investing a crude and new land with the 
enduring charuis of romance and tradition. 
In this respect, our obligation to him is that 
of Scotland to Scott and Burns ; and it is 
an obligation due only, in all history, to 
here and there a fortunate creator to whose 
genius opportunity is kind. The Knicker- 
bocker Legend and the romance with which 
Irving has invested the Hudson are a price- 
less legacy ; and this would remain an im- 
perishable possession in popular tradition 
if the literature creating it were destroyed. 
This sort of creation is unique in modern 
times. New York is the Knickerbocker 
city ; its whole social life remains colored by 
his fiction ; and the romantic background it 
owes to him in some measure supplies to it 
what great age has given to European cities. 
This creation is sufficient to secure for him 
an immortality, a length of earthly remem- 

19 



290 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

brance that all the rest of his writings to- 
gether might not give. • 

Irving was always the literary man ; he 
had the habits, the idiosyncrasies, of his 
small genus. I mean that he regarded life 
not from the philanthropic, the economic, 
the political, the philosophic, the metaphysic, 
the scientific, or the theologic, but purely 
from the literary point of view. He belongs 
to that small class of which Johnson and 
Goldsmith are perhaps as good types as 
anj^ and to which America has added very 
few. The literary point of view is taken 
by few in any generation ; it may seem to 
the world of very little consequence in the 
pressure of all the complex interests of life, 
and it may even seem trivial amid the 
tremendous energies applied to immediate 
affairs ; but it is the point of view that en- 
dures; if its creations do not mould human 
life, like the Roman law, they remain to 
charm and civilize, like the poems of Horace. 
You must not ask more of them than that. 
This attitude toward life is defensible on 
the highest grounds. A man with Irving's 
gifts has the right to take the position of an 
observer and describer, and not to be called 



CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. 291 

on for a more active participation in affairs 
than he chooses to take. He is doing the 
world the highest service of which he is 
capable, and the most enduring it can re- 
ceive from any man. It is not a question 
whether the work of the literary man is 
higher than that of the reformer or the 
statesman ; it is a distinct work, and is jus- 
tified by the result, even when the work is 
that of the humorist only. We recognize 
this in the case of the poet. Although 
Goethe has been reproached for his lack of 
sympathy with the liberalizing movement 
of his day (as if his novels were quieting 
social influences), it is felt by this genera- 
tion that the author of " Faust " needs no 
apology that he did not spend his energies 
in the effervescing politics of the German 
states. I mean, that while we may like or 
dislike the man for his sympathy or want 
of sympathy, we concede to the author the 
right of his attitude ; if Goethe had not 
assumed freedom from moral responsibility, 
I suppose that criticism of his aloofness 
would long ago have ceased. Irving did 
not lack sympathy with humanity in the 
concrete: it colored whatever he wrote. 



292 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

But he regarded the politics of his own 
country, the revokitions in France, the long 
struggle in Spain, without heat ; and he held 
aloof from projects of agitation and reform, 
and maintained the attitude of an observer, 
regarding the life about him from the point 
of view of the literary artist, as he was jus- 
tified in doing. 

Irving had the defects of his peculiar 
genius, and these have no doubt helped to fix 
upon him the complimentary disparagement 
of "genial." He was not aggressive; in 
his nature he was wholly unpartisan, and 
full of lenient charity ; and I suspect that 
his kindly regard of the world, although 
returned with kindly liking, cost him some- 
thing of that respect for sturdiness and force 
which men feel for writers who flout them 
as fools in the main. Like Scott, he be- 
longed to the idealists, and not to the real- 
ists, whom our generation affects. Both 
writers stimulate the longing for something 
better. Their creed was short : " Love God 
and honor the King." It is a very good one 
for a literary man, and might do for a 
Christian. The supernatural was still a 
reality in the age in which they wrote. 



CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. 293 

Irving's faith in God and his love of hu- 
manity were very simple; I do not sup- 
pose he was much disturbed by the deep 
problems that have set us all adrift. In 
every age, whatever is astir, literature, the- 
ology, all intellectual activity, takes one and 
the same drift, and approximates in color. 
The bent of Irving's spirit was fixed in his 
youth, and he escaped the desperate realism 
of this generation, which has no outcome, 
and is likely to produce little that is noble. 
I do not know how to account, on prin- 
ciples of culture which we recognize, for 
our author's style. His education was ex- 
ceedingly defective, nor was his want of 
discipline supplied by subsequent desultory 
application. He seems to have been born 
with a rare sense of literary proportion and 
form ; into this, as into a mould, were run 
his apparently lazy and really acute obser- 
vations of life. That he thoroughly mas- 
tered such literature as he fancied there is 
abundant evidence ; that his style was in- 
fluenced by the purest English models is 
also apparent. But there remains a large 
margin for wonder how, with his want of 
training, he could have elaborated a style 



294 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

which is distinctively his own, and is as 
copious, felicitous in the choice of words, 
flowing, spontaneous, flexible, engaging, 
clear, and as little wearisome when read 
continuously in quantity as any in the Eng- 
lish tongue. This is saying a great deal, 
though it is not claiming for him the com- 
pactness, nor the robust vigor, nor the depth 
of thought, of many others masters in it. 
It is sometimes praised for its simplicity. 
It is certainly lucid, but its simplicity is 
not that of Benjamin Franklin's style ; it 
is often ornate, not seldom somewhat dif- 
fuse, and always exceedingly melodious. It 
is noticeable for its metaphorical felicity. 
But it was not in the sympathetic nature of 
the author, to which I just referred, to come 
sharply to the point. It is much to have 
merited the eulogy of Campbell that he 
had " added clarity to the English tongue." 
This elegance and finish of style (which 
seems to have been as natural to the man 
as his amiable manner) is sometimes made 
his reproach, as if it were his sole merit, 
and as if he had concealed under this 
charming form a want of substance. In 
literature form is vital. But his case does 



CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. 295 

not rest upon that. As an illustration his 
" Life of Washington " may be put in 
evidence. Probably this work lost some- 
thing in incisiveness and brilliancy by being 
postponed till the writer's old age. But 
whatever this loss, it is impossible for any 
biography to be less pretentious in style, or 
less ambitious in proclamation. The only 
pretension of matter is in the early chapters, 
in which a more than doubtful genealogy is 
elaborated, and in which it is thought nec- 
essary to Washington's dignity to give a 
fictitious importance to his family and his 
childhood, and to accept the southern esti- 
mate of the hut in which he was born as a 
" mansion." In much of this false estimate 
Irving was doubtless misled by the fables 
of Weems. But while he has given us a 
dignified portrait of Washington, it is as far 
as possible removed from that of the smile- 
less prig which has begun to weary even the 
popular fancy. The man he paints is flesh 
and blood, presented, I believe, with sub- 
stantial faithfulness to his character ; with a 
recognition of the defects of his education 
and the deliberation of his mental opera- 
tions ; with at least a hint of that want of 



296 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

breadth of culture and knowledge of the 
past, the possession of which characterized 
many of his great associates ; and with no 
concealment that he had a dower of pas- 
sions and a temper which only vigorous 
self -watchfulness kept under. But he por- 
trays, with an admiration not too highly 
colored, the magnificent patience, the cour- 
age to bear misconstruction, the unfailing 
patriotism, the practical sagacity, the level 
balance of judgment combined with the 
wisest toleration, the dignity of mind, and 
the lofty moral nature which made him the 
great man of his epoch. Irving's grasp of 
this character ; his lucid marshaling of the 
scattered, often wearisome and uninterest- 
ing details of our dragging, unpicturesque 
Revolutionary War; his just judgment of 
men ; his even, almost judicial, moderation 
of tone ; and his admirable proportion of 
space to events, render the discussion of style 
in reference to this work superfluous. An- 
other writer might have made a more brill- 
iant performance : descriptions sparkling with 
antitheses, characters projected into startling 
attitudes by the use of epithets ; a work 
more exciting and more piquant, that would 



CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. 297 

have started a thousand controversies, and 
engaged the attention by daring conjectures 
and attempts to make a dramatic spectacle ; 
a book interesting and notable, but false in 
philosophy and untrue in fact. 

When the " Sketch-Book " appeared, an 
English critic said it should have been first 
published in England, for Irving was an 
English writer. The idea has been more 
than once echoed here. The truth is that 
while Irving was intensely American in 
feeling he was first of all a man of letters, 
and in that capacity he was cosmopolitan ; 
he certainly was not insular. He had a 
rare accommodation of tone to his theme. 
Of England, whose traditions kindled his 
susceptible fancy, he wrote as Englishmen 
would like to write about it. In Spain he 
was saturated with the romantic story of 
the people and the fascination of the clime ; 
and he was so true an interpreter of both 
as to earn from the Spaniards the title of 
" the poet Irving." I chanced once, in an 
inn at Frascati, to take up " The Tales of 
a Traveller," which I had not seen for many 
years. I expected to revive the somewhat 
faded humor and fancy of the past genera- 



298 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

tion. But I found not only a sprightly 
humor and vivacity which are modern, but 
a truth to Italian local color that is very 
rare in any writer foreign to the soil. As 
to America, I do not know what can be 
more characteristically American than the 
Knickerbocker, the Hudson River tales, the 
sketches of life and adventure in the far 
West. But underneath all this diversity 
there is one constant quality, — the flavor 
of the author. Open by chance and read 
almost anywhere in his score of books, — it 
may be the " Tour on the Prairies," the fa- 
miliar dream of the Alhambra, or the nar- 
ratives of the brilliant exploits of New 
World explorers ; surrender yourself to the 
flowing current of his transparent style, and 
you are conscious of a beguilement which is 
the crowning excellence of all lighter lit- 
erature, for which we have no word but 
" charm." 

The consensus of opinion about Irving in 
England and America for thirty years was 
very remarkable. He had a universal pop- 
ularity rarely enjoyed by any writer. Eng- 
land returned him to America medalled by 
the king, honored by the university which 



CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. 299 

is chary of its favors, followed by the ap- 
plause of the whole Enghsh people. In 
English households, in drawing-rooms of 
the metropolis in political circles no less 
than among the literary coteries, in the 
best reviews, and in the popular newspapers 
the opinion of him was pretty much the 
same. And even in the lapse of time and 
the change of literary fashion authors so 
unlike as Byron and Dickens were equally 
warm in admiration of him. To the English 
indorsement America added her own enthu- 
siasm, which was as universal. His readers 
were the million, and all his readers were 
admirers. Even American statesmen, who 
feed their minds on food we know not of, 
read Irving. It is true that the uncritical 
opinion of New York was never exactly re- 
echoed in the cool recesses of Boston cult- 
ure ; but the magnates of the '^ North 
American Review" gave him their meed of 
cordial praise. The country at large put 
him on a pinnacle. If you attempt to ac- 
count for the position he occupied by his 
character, which won the love of all men, it 
must be remembered that the quality which 
won this, whatever its value, pervades his 
books also. 



300 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

And yet it must be said that the total 
impression left upon the mind by the man 
and his works is not that of the greatest 
intellectual force. I have no doubt that 
this was the impression he made upon his 
ablest contemporaries. And this fact, when 
I consider the effect the man produced, 
makes the study of him all the more inter- 
esting. As an intellectual personality he 
makes no such impression, for instance, as 
Carlyle, or a dozen other writers now living 
who could be named. The incisive critical 
faculty was almost entirely wanting in him. 
He had neither the power nor the disposi- 
tion to cut his way transversely across pop- 
ular opinion and prejudice that Ruskin has, 
nor to draw around him disciples equally 
well pleased to see him fiercely demolish to- 
day what they had delighted to see him set 
up yesterday as eternal. He evoked neither 
violent partisanship nor violent opposition. 
He was an extremely sensitive man, and if 
he had been capable of creating a conflict 
he would only have been miserable in it. 
The play of his mind depended upon the 
sunshine of approval. And all this shows 
a certain want of intellectual virility. 



CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. 301 

A recent anonymous writer has said that 
most of the writing of our day is character- 
ized by an intellectual strain. I have no 
doubt that this will appear to be the case 
to the next generation. It is a strain to 
say something new even at the risk of par- 
adox, or to say something in a new way 
at the risk of obscurity. From this Irving 
was entirely free. There is no visible strain- 
ing to attract attention. His mood is calm 
and unexaggerated. Even in some of his 
pathos, which is open to the suspicion of 
being " literary," there is no literary ex- 
aggeration. He seems always writing from 
an internal calm, which is the necessary 
condition of his production. If he wins at 
all by his style, by his humor, by his por- 
traiture of scenes or of character, it is by a 
gentle force, like that of the sun in spring. 
There are many men now living, or recently 
dead, intellectual prodigies, who have stim- 
ulated thought, upset opinions, created men- 
tal eras, to whom Irving stands hardly in 
as fair a relation as Goldsmith to Johnson. 
What verdict the next generation will put 
upon their achievements I do not know ; 
but it is safe to say that their position and 



302 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

that of Irving as well will depend largely 
upon the affirmation or the reversal of their 
views of life and their judgments of charac- 
ter. I think the calm work of Irving will 
stand when much of the more startling and 
perhaps more brilliant intellectual achieve- 
ment of this age has passed away. 

And this leads me to speak of Irving's 
moral quality, which I cannot bring myself 
to exclude from a literary estimate, even 
in the face of the current gospel of art for 
art's sake. There is something that made 
Scott and Irving personally loved by the 
millions of their readers, who had only the 
dimmest ideas of their personality. This 
was some quality perceived in what they 
wrote. Each one can define it for himself ; 
there it is, and I do not see why it is not 
as integral a part of the authors — an ele- 
ment in the estimate of their future posi- 
tion — as what we term their intellect, their 
knowledge, their skill, or their art. How- 
ever you rate it, you cannot account for Ir- 
vinof's influence in the world without it. In 
bis tender tribute to Irving, the great-hearted 
Thackeray, who saw as clearly as anybody 
the place of mere literary art in the sura 



CHARACTER OF HIS LITERATURE. 303 



total of life, quoted the dying words of Scott 
to Lockhart, — " Be a good man, my dear." 
We know well enough that the great author 
of " The Newcomes" and the great author 
of " The Heart of Midlothian " recognized 
the abiding value in literature of integrity, 
sincerity, purity, charity, faith. These are 
beneficences; and Irving's literature, walk 
round it and measure it by whatever criti- 
cal instruments you will, is a beneficent lit- 
erature. The author loved good women, 
and little children and a pure life ; he had 
faith in his fellow-men, a kindly sympathy 
with the lowest, without any subservience 
to the highest ; he retained a belief in the 
possibility of chivalrous actions, and did 
not care to envelop them in a cynical suspi- 
cion ; he was an author still capable of an 
enthusiam. His books are wholesome, full 
of sweetness and charm, of humor without 
any sting, of amusement without any stain ; 
and their more solid qualities are marred 
by neither pedantry nor pretension. 



Washington Irving died on the 28th of 

November, 1859, at the close of a lovely 

1 day of that Indian Summer which is no- 



304 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

where more full of a melancholy charm 
than on the banks of the lower Hudson, 
and which was in perfect accord with the 
ripe and peaceful close of his life. He was 
buried on a little elevation overlooking 
Sleepy Hollow and the river he loved, 
amidst the scenes which his magic pen has 
made classic and his sepulchre hallows. 



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